Triptych
by Iellix
Summary: AU for S.3. When a Connor from an alternate reality slips through an anomaly and into Abby and Connor's real reality, there are decisions to be made and certain -tensions- to resolve. Semi-sequel to iEvenstar Estel's 'Cloudy With a Chance of Connors'.
1. Prologue

Okay! So, I finally got up and at 'em and wrote iEvenstar Estel's plotbunny (from months ago!) for a fic-swap. She wanted a fic in which another more confident Connor comes through an anomaly and results in one very lucky Abby; Connor/Abby/Connor threesomes will ensue. Then she went and wrote a fic called 'Cloudy With a Chance of Connors', which featured an alternate-universe Connor with an eye patch and _the ideas poured forth._ So this fic is a semi-sequel to 'Cloudy' as well as an answer to her plotbunny. I recommend reading that story before this one.

**WARNING:** The rating of this story will eventually be very much **M**—this prologue is tame, as are the first couple of chapters, but it isn't going to stay that way! Consider this your head's up.

Disclaimer: I do not own Primeval, Connor, Abby, anomalies, or anything else from the series. Nor do I own Eye Patch Connor, who is the creation of iEvenstar Estel.

o…o

It was _bad._

Most things these days were bad, Connor mused, feeling curiously detached from the whole situation, like he was watching it from the outside, but this was bad even for _these _days. He didn't know where the rest of his men were—the strobe-like flickering lights in the warehouse and the new wave of Future Predators caused the men to scatter in fear. The Predators, they'd learned grimly over the years, were not only extremely dangerous but _highly_ intelligent. The creatures learned their formations, their techniques, and adapted their attacks accordingly. The same plan only worked a small handful of times before the Predators knew it by heart and it became completely useless.

It seemed they'd also learned how to _anticipate_ new formations and were somehow one step ahead of a new plan. The soldiers were driven apart and left to fend for themselves, frightened and disoriented and totally helpless in the blue flicker of the lights. Most of the men, Connor knew, were probably dead. If they weren't already, they soon would be. The shrieks of the victoriously feeding Future Predators could be heard echoing in the warehouse.

There was the metallic skittering of claws on the panelling. They were looking for more food. He heard a low growl and felt a warm weight pressing against his thigh.

"I know, Eva," he said. "I know."

So this is how it all ends, he thought. The whole Anomaly Project, his life, humanity—it all ends here, alone and helpless at the hands of monster bats.

In the last few years, Connor Temple thought about death a lot, particularly in the past four or so—four years, maybe five; how long had it been, anyway?—since his Abby died. Part of it was morbid and crippling depression, wondering about and hoping for death, and then later he told himself it was because he wanted to mentally prepare himself for the inevitable. The more he thought about death, he'd rationalized, the less frightening the idea was.

So now here he was, about to die.

And it _scared_ him. Good god, it scared him stupid. He knew it was only a matter of seconds now, his heart pounding hard and fast against his ribs. They'd hear that, find him. Eva was panting in fear and he knew her heart was going fast, too; they'd go for her, once they were done with him. And he was _scared,_ no matter how much he told himself he didn't care if he lived or died. No matter how badly he thought he wanted to die, that annoyingly persistent survival instinct was always going to be stronger. Faced so totally with his own mortality, he was terrified.

He felt the weight of the gun in his hand. He could cock it and end it now, for himself and Eva—two quick deaths, two bullets in their brains. Better than being torn apart alive by the Future Predators, a slow and agonizingly painful death—more than once he'd heard his men screaming on and on for minutes as the creatures devoured them. But cocking the gun would just draw more attention and he didn't know where the others were…

Who was he kidding? There _were_ no others. If there were any other soldiers left, they'd be dead soon themselves.

He reached for his gun, preparing to end it now.

And then there was an explosion, a flash of light; Eva barked and growled, predators shrieked in pain and confusion, the sound and the sudden burst throwing their sensors off and disorienting them. Not all anomalies came up in such a flashy explosion, but occasionally one did. Just like this one.

It was like a gateway to heaven, or it would be if he hadn't stopped believing in any higher power long ago. His mind raced as he thought over his options—of which he had very few. He could stay here and die by Future Predators or his own gun, or he could take a chance. This anomaly could lead anywhere, to any time or place. But even death by drowning in the serene pre-Cambrian ocean would be better than being torn apart by Future Predators, the last human being on earth.

The familiar shifty white glitter of the anomaly illuminated the dim warehouse. The creatures had scattered, taken by surprise, which meant that at least they wouldn't come through it immediately after him to hunt him.

He made his decision.

"Come on, Eva—let's get out of here," he said.

It was ages since he'd been through an anomaly, and he'd almost forgotten the weird topsy-turvy-stomach feeling that came with going through a tear in time and space. Anomalies appeared in this world but they never ventured through them; there was no time for that in this world.

There was grass on the other side, sweet and a little damp. He fell to his hands and knees in the soft green, the dew on his hands and seeping through to his knees. The smell kicked up dead memories in his head and Eva sniffed cautiously at it—this was the first time she'd ever seen or smelled fresh grass.

Behind them the anomaly flickered, contracted, and then swelled before it snapped closed behind them. It was a blessing, a gift—something that stayed open just long enough for him and Eva to get to safety. He didn't know or care where he was right now. He was tired, everything catching up when his exhaustion came up and broadsided him. Injuries he'd been too busy to notice only moments ago suddenly became painfully apparent—there was a sharp pain in his knee, shooting all the way up his body, his head hurt, his hands stung from countless tiny cuts.

He had no idea where he was, but he couldn't hear any predators and his dog wasn't alerting him to any danger. He knew he had to get up and get under cover somewhere until he figured out where he was and what he could do, but his strength drained from him all at once and he slumped, the world going out of focus and then dark.


	2. Chapter One

People were anxious enough to get the story part of this story underway, and I was inclined to agree. That, and the writing is going along smoothly enough—and the story is slated to be _short_ enough—that I can justify posting this chapter so quickly. I'm not sure what my update schedule will be but I promise to do my damndest not to let too terribly much time go by between chapters!

I hope you enjoy—feedback is, as always, greatly loved and appreciated. But never demanded.

o…o

He was asleep in bed having a very nice dream when he was rudely roused by a hand prodding him in the back. He grumbled and wriggled down into the blankets and pulled the covers over his head. The hand stopped prodding him and Connor relaxed for two seconds before the blankets were all dragged off.

"It's _early,"_ he whined, groping for the stolen blankets.

"No earlier than any other day—c'mon, stop being such a brat and get up," Abby said over him.

Why did they even bother with an alarm clock when Abby was always getting him out of bed before it was even set to go off?

"I'll give you fifty quid for ten more minutes."

"No."

"Thirty for five?"

"Connor!"

He grabbed a pillow and held it up to her, still refusing to get up. "Well, then, will you take all the change out of all of my jeans and smother me with my pillow?"

She swatted his hand away and sighed. She loved him, she really did, but that didn't mean that all of his little habits didn't still irritate the hell out of her. He relaxed a little bit, clearly thinking she'd back off. She switched tactics.

"Think I can get away with not wearing a bra with this t-shirt?" She asked loudly.

Connor sat straight up in bed, eyes wide, grinning, but the smile faltered a bit when he realized she wasn't standing there braless.

"That's a dirty trick," he grumbled.

"Worked, didn't it?" She gave him a little smile and sat at the edge of the bed. She ran her fingers through his bed hair, sticking up and out and sideways, and she leaned forward and kissed him softly. He pulled her closer and tried to deepen the kiss, but she stiffened and resisted and pulled away from him.

He whined softly in his throat and fixed her with his most pathetic puppydog eyes.

"Not now," she told him. "We've got to go to work—you know, dinosaurs, anomalies, saving the world?" She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose before getting up. "I left you some hot water—go shower, all right? I'll put the kettle on."

Despite himself, he got out of bed in a _really_ good mood. God, how pathetic was he? One little kiss and a smile from Abby and he was automatically on cloud nine. Ridiculously, embarrassingly cheerful, even though it was seven in the morning and he was awake and heading off for a day of trying not to let any evil people fuck around with timelines and history and stopping a really big and frustrated bull something-a-saurus from stampeding up and down the M-4 and trying to mate with a Volkswagen.

_That_ was fun yesterday, he thought with a private roll of his eyes in the shower, letting the cold water run for a bit in an attempt to jump-start his brain. He didn't know how they were going to trump that today.

He and Sarah busied themselves with the artefact and rebuilding Cutter's physical anomaly model—the twisted tubes and pipes tied together that he'd been assembling before…

Connor stopped in mid-crouch. It was eight months now since Cutter's death and it still stung to think about it. He'd gotten used to not seeing him at the Arc anymore, already in his office and hard at work by the time they all came in every morning and still working when they all left at night. Unshaved with bed hair because he often forgot to go home—it wasn't uncommon for one of them to find him asleep in a sea of papers at his desk, driving himself to exhaustion.

But he was gone now, and for the most part Connor and the others had gotten used to his absence. But every so often he'd think about it and it would hurt to remember that his friend and mentor was gone.

"Are you all right?" Sarah asked, putting a hand comfortingly on his shoulder. He jerked, startled by her touch. "Connor?"

"Yeah—yeah, sorry. I think… just thinking, is all." He shook his head like a dog irritated by flies.

She seemed to understand and nodded slowly. She looked at her watch and said, "Know what? It's near enough to lunchtime—why don't you go down to the canteen and get something to eat? I'll take over here."

"Thanks," he said softly.

Instead of eating in the cafeteria with everyone else on break, he took his lunch back up to the ADD where he could work at the same time. He swiftly forgot about the food and got lost in his work.

"You're becoming just like him, you know," he heard Abby's voice as she leaned over the back of his chair.

He looked up at her slowly. "What's that mean?"

She smoothed his hair back with one hand and kissed the top of his head. "You work all the time—while you're eating or in front of the telly or when we're in bed. The only time you're _not_ working is when we're having sex, and even then I'm pretty sure you're doing calculations in your head."

"I'm not that talented a multi-tasker," he countered.

"Still," she said, "taking over Nick's work and working _all the time_ isn't going to change anything."

"I know."

She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and kissed his temple, then rested her cheek against it. She felt him sigh and lean into her hold. He turned his chair so he could pull her into his lap and she couldn't help but giggle. This was so different from the way they used to act—spending years carefully dancing around in their 'we're-not-in-a-relationship-even-though-we're-basically-an-old-married-couple' limbo. There was a certain shared feeling of _oh, finally!_ in the Arc when they made it official six months ago. It seemed the only people who didn't know that she and Connor had it bad for each other were her and Connor—Danny Quinn told them that there were single-celled pre-Cambrian life-forms who knew that they had it bad for each other.

He held her against his chest and absently reached up to pick a piece of hay out of her hair.

"Been in the pens again?" He asked.

"You know me—I'm a lizard girl." She'd been down in the holding pens where they kept their 'guests', the creatures that were left behind when their anomalies closed and were too big to keep for pets.

"How's our friend, the giant rutting armadillo-thing?"

"He's a Glyptodont," she told him; he raised one hand defensively. "Lester's started calling him 'Romeo' after he found out what he was doing to that poor lady's car."

He snorted.

"Except for being a little sexually frustrated, I think he's fine. You know, I think he's trying to make a pass at me every time I walk by. Like some prehistoric armadillo's version of 'hey babe, what's your sign?' or something. He's young, I think, even though he's an adult. Probably wandered through the anomaly during mating season and he's still in 'must-fuck-anything-that-will-stand-still-long-enough' mode."

"Poor guy. I sympathize, really."

She nuzzled his neck and planted open-mouthed kisses up to his ear. He groaned.

"_Ladies!"_

Lester's voice startled them both; Abby jumped out of his lap an straightened her clothes and Connor pulled his shirt down to cover his hard-on.

"And I thought it was bad when you two were filling Britain's nationwide quota for unresolved sexual tension," he said in his usual bored tone, leaning over the railing overhead outside his office. "Temple, you and Quinn are going on a field trip."

"Are you asking me to go investigate some creature sighting?" Connor called up.

"No. I'm telling you. There's a car out front. Try not to cause a national security incident. And Miss Maitland?"

Abby winced.

"We would all appreciate it if you kept the homemade sex scenes out of working hours. It's not as if his mind is _that_ sharp normally—he needs all the blood there he can get."

Connor clicked a few times and pushed a few buttons and put the ADD back on 'automatic' mode and Abby went off to go take care of her plants, their faces identical shades of bright pink.

She spent the afternoon looking after her plants and the animals and trying to avoid Lester and the cackling interns who overheard what he'd said to her and Connor earlier.

Anomaly-wise it was quiet all day—there was no screaming Anomaly Detector and no frantic calls of pythons in people's toilets.

While she was helping Sarah map out and build more of Cutter's model, her mobile went off. She didn't recognize the number, but she answered it anyway.

"_May I speak with miss… Abigail Maitland?"_

"Speaking," she said slowly.

The man explained he was a doctor at the hospital and her heart raced a mile a minute. _"Miss Maitland, do you have a… a boyfriend called Connor Temple and a female Alsatian-mix?"_

She was quiet for a long, long time—what was Connor doing in hospital? Was there a car accident, had something happened with Danny? And what about this dog? She and Connor didn't have a dog, and to her knowledge neither did Danny. What the hells was going on?

"I—I—well, I think…"

"_He's five foot, ten inches? Black hair? Eye patch?" _The doctor was feeding her information, clearly confused by her confusion. They'd found him early this morning, injured and unconscious without any identification on him; they'd traced him to the Arc by his fingerprints. But Connor was definitely not unconscious on a traffic island early this morning, and he didn't wear an eye patch…

Wait—an _eye patch?_

No, it couldn't be…

"I'll be right there," she told the man before she hung up. "Hey, Sarah? I think something's come up. I have to go. If Lester asks just tell him I'll explain everything later—it's an emergency."

"Is everything all right?" The woman asked worriedly. "Is Connor okay?"

"I'm not sure!" was all she said as she grabbed her coat and left at a run.

o…o

She went to the hospital, and sure enough there was _Eye Patch Connor,_ the one who came through the anomaly six months ago alongside sixteen others—the one who came from some kind of terrifying Armageddon in which Future Predators hunted the last remaining humans. He was still kitted out in his leather outfit and he still desperately needed a shave, though he was cleaner now, thanks probably to the doctors washing him up.

Abby listened to the aftercare instructions and nodded dumbly, not tearing her eyes away from the Connor staring glassily at the ceiling in a morphine-induced haze. He had a dozen staples in his sliced knee and a few stitches elsewhere and he was bruised like he'd been in a fight. Whatever happened to him before he somehow found an anomaly to this world must have been…

"Miss Maitland?" The doctor put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just… concerned." She didn't know what to tell the staff so instead she told them nothing. What else was there to do?

"Despite everything he seems to be in good working order," he was saying. "We have your dog in the parking garage in a crate—if you'll excuse my asking, what do you need a dog like that for? She was so protective we had to call the RSPCA—they tranquilized her so we could bring your boyfriend in!"

"You can never be too careful, can you?" She asked.

The doctor took her down to the garage for the dog while Eye Patch was being discharged and a feeling of dread crept into her stomach—what was this dog going to do to _her?_ The animal was _huge,_ far bigger than any normal Shepherd, light in colour and with a tear in her right ear. She barked threateningly as they approached, clearly scared and wondering where her master was. Abby didn't want to go anywhere near her.

And then the dog looked at her and sniffed the air and suddenly she was as happy as a house pet, wagging her tail and pricking her ears forward. She bounded over happily, perfectly docile. Clearly the dog recognized _her,_ even though this was the first time Abby had ever seen her. Apart from the scars on her face and the little tear in her ear, she seemed healthy enough—she was an older dog, a few grey hairs in her muzzle, but she had good teeth and appeared to be quite well-fed. And obviously she was _someone's_ pet.

Abby went through getting Eye Patch Connor out of the hospital and loading him and his crutches and the dog into the car and driving it all home. On the way, her mind was a jumbled mess of questions—how did this happen? Was _her_ Connor messing about with anomalies and DNA again? Were there _other_ Connors in other parts of England stumbling injured through anomalies—and if so, how many? If not, then how did _this one_ end up _here?_ Was there still an open anomaly to his world, the one he himself described as Armageddon? And if that were the case, then they had to find it, and _fast, _before Future Predators started crawling through it. If her Connor had nothing to do with this, then how the hell was she going to explain Eye Patch's presence in their flat? She had to bring him to the flat—there was no way in _hell_ she was taking him back to the Arc, not in his condition—especially not when she didn't know how to explain it to Lester. Or anyone else.

She drove the whole way without thinking about it, her mind racing elsewhere—a confused herpetologist on auto-pilot. Eye Patch was still woozy, disoriented, and mumbling to himself. The dog bounded out of the car, cheerfully barking at the pigeons, but didn't stray far from either of them. Abby supported Eye Patch Connor and helped him limp up into the flat, where she deposited him on the sofa. The dog was sniffing around; Rex swirled in the air overhead, confused by this intrusion, and Sid and Nancy bounded up to investigate the new arrival.

She sat down in the chair opposite the sofa, watching Eye Patch twitch in his sleep the way her Connor twitched in _his_ sleep. For some reason, that made her smile—perhaps there was a little more of her Connor in this one than he was willing to admit.

She pulled out her phone and sent her Connor a text—_'We've got company. Too much to explain but come straight home when you're done.'_

It was another hour before Eye Patch stirred again. His good eye opened, then snapped shut; he groaned and rubbed it with his fist.

She ran over and knelt down next to him. "Conn?" She asked softly, reaching out to stroke his hair. "Connor?"

He made a growly moaning sound in his throat and his eyebrows knit in a frown. "Abby?" He croaked. "Abbs…" Slowly, he opened his good eye, squinting in the room. He looked around it, realization and recognition coming across his face. "Fucking hell…" he pushed himself up a little and looked around. "Am I dead?"

"No," she said, still stroking his hair. "You're not dead."

"Oh. Well, shit, then. I was hoping this was heaven."

She looked around. "You couldn't come up with something a little better than this for heaven?"

He gave her a bittersweet smile. "Live as long as I 'ave in hell and even something as simple as our old flat with you is heaven." He leaned back down on the cushions and closed his eye. "Are you the Abby I snogged a few months back?"

She felt her face turn bright red. "Yeah."

"Mm," he hummed softly, then took her hand in his and held it against is chest. He was watching her intently, holding her gaze with his one dark eye. "Maybe this is heaven after all."

"I think that's just the drugs talking," she said quickly. It took all of her willpower to take her hand away from his as her heart started to race, but she kept contact with him, moving her hand to his shoulder.

"Could be." Then he shrugged.

"How did you get here?" She asked.

"Why, you want me to go back where I came from, so you can get to boinking your Connor in private?" He asked with that irritating 'I'm-right-and-I-know-it' grin that she didn't even like seeing on her _own_ Connor.

"No," she said firmly. There was a flash of hurt across his face so she quickly said, "To be honest I don't think he'd care if you were here or not. But if you came through an anomaly—"

"And I did."

"—then we're gonna need to find out where that anomaly is. If it's still open, the Future Predators from your world could come through—"

"Don't worry about it," he told her. "It snapped closed as soon as me an' Eva got to this side. We were the only things what came through. No Future Predators for you to worry your pretty l'il head over, Abbs."

He reached up to cup her cheek in his hand, but stopped himself and let his hand drop. For all that Eye Patch Connor was tougher and way more of a hardass than her Connor, she new him well enough to know that he desperately wanted to touch her, to hold her. She remembered that spectacular snog before he'd gone back through his anomaly—he probably did it because he figured it was the last time he'd get to kiss an Abby, _any _Abby, again.

She found herself unconsciously leaning forward, getting closer to him, and righted herself immediately. Would it still be cheating if she made out with this Connor, she wondered? Technically it was the same person, except he really, really wasn't. _Threesome_ thoughts were playing over and over again in her head, and she mentally slapped herself.

"So, is Eva…" she gestured to the dog, who was now settling down with Sid and Nancy for a nap, licking their blocky heads like they were her puppies.

"Yeah—Eva's my ol' bitch. She's a guard dog, trained like police dogs. We used 'em for protection. They could smell Predators before we could see 'em, made it easier to not die."

"They?"

"There were three of them, all sisters, but she's all what's left. Zsa-Zsa and Magda both died."

Zsa-Zsa, Magda, and Eva? She raised her eyebrows. "The Gabor dogs? Seriously, Connor?"

He grinned and her heart did a funny little flutter. Her Connor smiled plenty, but this one didn't. "Abby—my Abby—named 'em."

Part of her wanted to ask exactly how similar she was to _his_ Abby, but she held her tongue. Now wasn't the time. "What _is_ she, exactly?"

He shrugged. "A secret known only to her mother, that. Abby thought the pups were half Alsatian, half wolf—'cos of their tails and their faces or something like that. A pretty good mix for an attack dog, if you think about it. All the cool action heroes have hybrid wolf-dogs."

And there was a little of her Connor again in him.

"Why's she okay with me?" She asked. "They said at the hospital they had to tranquilize her so they could take you into the ambulance, but with me it's like she's a puppy. Why is that?"

"Oh, don't be stupid, Abbs. You're a zoologist, can't you figure it out?"

"I'm a lizard girl, Connor."

He reached up and pushed a bit of fringe off her forehead. "It might be a different universe and all, but in the end you're still biologically the same Abby—Eva knows that. You smell like her so there's no reason for her to assume you're not her. She's basically your dog anyway. Ol' bitch always liked Abby best."

He shifted and looked away from her, crossing his arms so he wouldn't be tempted to touch her again.

God, she wanted to kiss him so badly.

_No,_ she told herself firmly. She shouldn't get attached. As soon as the drugs wore off completely, he'd probably be back to the way he was the last time she'd seen him—gnashing at the bit to get back to his Armageddon home, and back to his men. She got up and went to the kitchen to make them a cup of tea.

"So… once you're back on your feet again, I'm guessing you'll want us to find a way to send you home?"

He didn't answer.

"Connor?"

She leaned over the sofa and saw he was asleep. She pulled a blanket over him and kissed his forehead.


	3. Chapter Two

Like Helen Cutter, I'm fucking around with timelines here. This whole story takes place during the third series, sometime after Cutter died, and references other events in the series. Jack, however, remains absent. (Though I might reference him later on, just for fun.) Time is also being stretched to a remarkable degree to accommodate the story and the establishment of the whole Connor-and-Abby relationship.

o…o

Abby figured it was probably a good idea to meet Connor outside the flat and explain to him what she knew, rather than let him come inside and see Eye Patch drugged out and asleep on the sofa. The last thing she needed was two Connors going crackers and potentially fighting. Fighting over _her._ Like gladiators. In leather battle kilts, all sweaty and glistening and dirty…

No! Bad thoughts, Abby, bad thoughts!

Connor had been sorely put off that she couldn't come and get him, sulking over the phone and using a piteous little voice. But she told him she couldn't come and get him and she'd explain why when he got home.

She saw Danny Quinn's motorbike pull up outside the flat and she opened the door to slip outside in time to see a terrified-looking Connor take his helmet off and sink to his knees to kiss the pavement.

"Oh, stop being such a drama queen, kiddo!" Danny said. He flipped up his helmet's visor and nodded politely to her. "Hello, Abby. Your boyfriend's the biggest sissy on the planet."

"Hi, Danny—thanks for taking him home. There's some… stuff going on here."

"Nothing I should be concerned about, I hope?" He asked.

"Naw," she shook her head, then knelt to pick Connor up from his lip-lock with the cement. "C'mon, Conn."

"See you two kids later," Danny said, flipping down is visor. He revved the bike and it roared to life under him, and then he was gone.

"Do you… have any idea… how _terrifying_ it is to ride on the back of one of those things?" Connor rasped, his voice raising an octave with every few words. _"Especially_ one with _Danny Quinn_ driving it? I thought I was gonna die!"

"Danny's right—you _are_ the biggest wimp on the planet."

He grinned widely—his smile was still so sweet and boyish compared to Eye Patch Connor's smile. She wondered how old Eye Patch _was;_ he _looked_ like he was older than her Connor, but he also lived a much rougher life, and he smoked, so that might have had something to do with it. Maybe she'd ask him. But first…

"So, I think we have a problem," she said straight away.

"What kind of a problem?" He asked, his eyes narrowing and his smile fading.

"Uhm…" she trailed off, unsure how to start this conversation. "So, d'you remember when you were experimenting with DNA and anomalies?"

"Yes…"

"One of the other-you's that came through wore an eye patch?"

"I remember him—how can I not? He had his tongue down your throat for about an hour before he left."

He looked a little jealous just then, a flash in his eyes that disappeared quickly. She swallowed hard. She had no idea how to say this so she just spat it out quickly and hoped for the best.

"He's here," she said. Connor's eyes went as big as saucers and his mouth popped open. "He's in there," she nodded towards the door, "asleep. They found him sometime this morning—so far as I know he stumbled through an anomaly and it closed right after he got through. And, well, he had no ID on him and our fingerprints are on record because we work for the government, and since fingerprints don't change…"

"They phoned you, thinking it was me," he finished for her.

"Yeah."

He looked like he was coming up with a whole list of possible reasons and solutions for their current problem, his eyes glazing over the way they did when his thoughts were racing a mile a minute. "Let's go inside," he said finally.

Abby stopped him before he could open the door. "Wait," she said, remembering Eva-the-scary-guard-dog on the other side of the door. She didn't know how she'd react to Connor and didn't want to take any chances. She slipped inside and went to grab the dog by her collar with both hands, hoping she'd be able to keep her under control should anything happen.

Her Connor sidled into the flat, getting nervous because _she_ was nervous. Eva's ears pricked forward as soon as he entered; she could feel the dog starting to growl, but she wasn't getting aggressive.

_Yet._

And then Connor came upstairs and she erupted into loud, deep, hysterical barking at the intruder. Connor's eyes went big and he balked.

"Where did _that_ come from?"

"She came through with _him,"_ she said, nodding towards the sofa where Eye Patch was just rousing himself from another drug-induced sleep. "She's his fucking guard dog." She kept her hands on the dog's collar, gripping as tight as she could as Eva barked and tried to tear away from her to do what she was trained to do.

"For god's sake, shut up!" The sound of Eye Patch's low, tired, gruff voice made the dog quiet down straight away. "Thank you." He sat up and rubbed his face tiredly, slipping one hand under his eye patch to rub his scarred eye.

Connor cautiously took another step into the flat, apparently more worried about Eva than about the other _him_ on their couch, and the dog strained forward to sniff at him. Then her tail started wagging and her stance relaxed considerably. She looked at the Connor cowering at the front of the flat, and then at the Connor on the sofa, clearly confused.

"I think she recognizes you," Abby said. "She recognized me."

"Well of _course_ she would—I'm still the same guy as Snake Plissken over there. Dog's not smart enough to know about alternate realities or what have you so she's just excited 'cos I smell like... me." He inched forward cautiously, holding out a hand for her to sniff. Eva licked his fingers and nudged his hand onto her head. "'Least she won't try and bite my face off or anything."

Abby let the dog go, and she eventually got bored with Connor and went back to playing with Sid and Nancy.

"Okay," she said. "Now that that's all sorted out," she turned to her Connor and prodded him sharply in the chest with her finger, _"what_ did you _do?"_

He held up his hands. "What d'you mean, what did I _do?"_ He snapped back.

"How did he get here, huh?" She demanded, pointing to the sofa. "What were you dicking around with?"

"Oh,_ come on!"_ He snapped. "Why d'you have to be that way? Why do you just automatically _assume_ that this is my fault?"

"Isn't it?"

He paused. "You know, I don't know." He turned to look at the Connor on the sofa; he was sitting up, a pained look on his face, clearly stiff and sore. "How did you get here?"

"Anomaly," he said simply. "It was either an anomaly or the Future Predators, so I took a chance. Turned out to be a good one."

"What about…" she trailed off, unsure how to ask him about his men. "The others?"

He looked down at his lap and shook his head. "I don't think there are any others," he said quietly. "There was… well, those stupid fucking Predators are too smart. We were taken by surprise and separated. If anyone was left, they'd've been dead soon enough. I would've been, too, one way or another. I was going to…" he went quiet and made a gesture with his fingers, pointing an imaginary gun at his temple. "Better'n letting those _things_ rip me apart. That's when the anomaly opened. Even if I ended up in the Triassic or something, it would have been better than where I was."

Both of them were quiet as they let that sink in—he came through an anomaly because he knew he was the last man left, because he knew he was going to die if he didn't. No wonder he hadn't been trying to get her to take him to the Arc and open an anomaly so he could go back—he had nothing to go back _to._

She felt a hand on her back as Connor led her away so they could talk in private.

"What're we gonna do about him?" She asked softly. "You're supposed to be the expert on this kind of thing."

He shook his head. "I don't know, Abbs. He doesn't have anywhere to go." He wrinkled his nose in thought. "I suppose we'd _have _to send him back. I don't now what'll happen if we keep him here. He doesn't technically exist in this world."

Horrified, she stepped away. "What? No! You _can't_ send him back, he'll die! Didn't you hear what he said? He said his men were all dead!"

The thought of sending Eye Patch Connor back to his Armageddon to certain death made a feeling of terror and panic rise up in her throat. She told herself it was because she couldn't stand the thought of a Connor—_any_ Connor—getting hurt or, worse, killed. But part of her, the deep and emotional part she liked to ignore a lot, knew better. She'd gotten attached to him the first time she met him, months ago when her Connor's DNA experiment went haywire on them. Now that he was here, with nowhere to go, the thought of keeping him was appealing—and for far more reasons than her rampaging 'threesome' thoughts.

Her protest had come out far louder than she'd intended, loud enough that Eye Patch heard it. Both Connors were looking at her, eyebrows raised, with identical expressions of surprise and slight bemusement.

"I can't let you send another human being back to get killed," she said firmly, trying to save face even as her cheeks burned pink. "That's just… no. We'll figure something out, all right? I'm sure you can work something out, you're a smart guy. Even though he's not _you,_ I still don't like the idea of sending _any_ Connor to his death."

She glanced over at Eye Patch and expected to see him looking smug, but instead he was sitting there turning quite red. Did he know, she wondered? Her Connor could be oblivious at the best of times, but she wasn't sure about this one.

"Hey, it's okay," Connor said, pulling her close to him with an arm around her waist. He kissed her forehead gently, reassuringly, and let his lips linger against her hair. "If it bothers you that much, we won't do it. To be honest, it bothers me, too. Be like suicide, that. Sort of."

She laughed wetly against his chest, but relaxed. For the time being, at least, Eye Patch was safe.

"So we're keeping him?"

"For now," he said. "Looks like he's got some mending to do. He's got more staples in him than an office supply store."

"I heard that!"

Abby giggled.

"So I'm your foundling, now, am I?" He asked with a smirk. His face was back to its normal colour now. "That's great, but what're we all gonna do for the long term, eh? You might be able to keep me secret for a little while, but what about in the long term?"

She slumped—she hadn't thought of that.

"We could bring you to the Arc and see what Lester—"

"Oh, hell no, not Lester," he growled. "Your Lester's just like mine, that I can remember, anyway. If your Lester hates _you_ the same way _my_ Lester hated _me,_ I guarantee he's not gonna take well to having another Connor Temple to deal with."

She remembered how annoyed Lester had been at the mere—and _temporary—_presence of all those Connors. Having a second one on a potentially-permanent basis might actually give him a massive heart attack.

"Look, I hate to be the voice of reason here, but we might actually _need_ Lester's help," Connor said.

Eye Patch snorted. "Why?"

"There's no way we can innocently explain away your presence—you'll need some false identification and papers and all that jazz if you're going to stay here permanently. And Lester knows all the right people to make you legitimately real in this world." He paused. _"Are_ you gonna stay here permanently?"

He shrugged. "There's more to the world than England. I could disappear if I really needed to."

"Okay, look," Abby said, stepping away from her Connor and crossing her arms decisively. "There's nothing that says we have to have all of this worked out _right now._ For one thing, you've got some mending to do," she said, pointing at Eye Patch. "For a while, at least, we can hide you until we figure everything out. Until then, we won't make any snap decisions. All right?"

"Okay."

"Yeah."

"Now _you,"_ she pointed to Eye Patch Connor again, her voice firm, "stay in the flat. Don't go anywhere, don't do anything, don't talk to anyone. Okay?"

"Yes ma'am."

"And _you,"_ she jabbed her Connor in the chest, "don't breathe a _word_ of this to _anyone!"_

"Give me a _little _credit—"

"Just keep your mouth shut about this, okay?"

They ordered pizza and let Eye Patch have as much of it as he wanted. He said it had been years since he'd had any and forgot how much he loved it. Eva came by begging for scraps of the new and unfamiliar food—they'd have to get her some dog food, Abby supposed—before going back to her adopted puppies.

"You sure you're okay with this?" She asked Connor later in the kitchen, out of earshot of their guest.

"Sure. It's a bit… well, it's _weird_ but it isn't the weirdest thing that's ever happened to us. It's not Helen Cutter's clone army or a fungus that takes over your body or Cutter coming back through an anomaly talking about some woman none of us have ever met, so in the grand scheme of things it's not worth worrying over, is it?"

She supposed he was probably right—but still, she'd expected _some _kind of reaction out of him. If nothing else, he should have been jealous, but he didn't even seem the slightest bit jealous. Connor was way too easygoing. If anything, he seemed intrigued.

They thought to let Eye Patch Connor sleep in Connor's old loft, but with his bad knee he couldn't manage the stairs on his own so they left him to sleep on the couch. Connor offered him some sweatpants or pajamas, but he declined. When Abby brought him some pillows and extra blankets, he pulled her down by her arm into his lap. He ground his hips roughly into hers, his arousal more than evident. She groaned involuntarily, feeling herself get _very_ warm, _very_ quickly.

"Don't suppose there's room for me in your bed, is there?" He growled softly in her ear. He lipped her neck, his unshaved beard rasping on the delicate skin and making her break out in shivers. He smelled like cigarettes and sweat, and under it all he smelled like _Connor,_ exactly the same as her own Connor smelled. Instinctively she rolled her own hips into his and he kissed her neck again. _Damn,_ that felt good and his offer was _awfully_ tempting…

Those threesome thoughts were coming to the forefront of her mind again; she forced herself back into reality and made herself get up; he was smirking at her and he had a pronounced bulge in his leather trousers.

"You'll be okay here tonight?"

"Are you stayin' with me?" He asked; she shook her head. "Pity. But, I expect I'll get by."

She trotted out of the room to the safety of her and Connor's bedroom, where he was already in bed. Shirtless, in his underwear. He wasn't Eye Patch Connor in those sexy leather trousers, all dirty and smelling of cigarettes and despair, but he was still Connor and she licked her lips predatorily before climbing in on top of him, straddling his hips.

"You look… _intense,"_ he observed.

"Shut up, Connor." She leaned down and kissed him hard, digging her nails into his bare chest and biting his tongue when he moaned. _Threesome_ fantasies fuelled her tonight, and she fell asleep with the fantasy still playing in her head.

o…o


	4. Chapter Three

This chapter went and got porny without me intending it. It just had to be written that way! So this is where the rating goes up to 'M' and the story is no longer going to appear on the main page for updates. It hasn't gotten to 'threesome' yet, but it's getting close. (Poor Abby is about to crack!)

Feedback is, as always, much loved should you choose to leave it.

o…o

Five days. _Five days_ with Eye Patch Connor in their flat. Abby had always rather enjoyed being a woman, and the fact that her body didn't broadcast it for all to see when she was turned on and that she usually held all the cards in any sexual situation—but she hadn't had dry knickers since Eye Patch fell into their lives. That 'threesome' fantasy was awfully persistent. She didn't _dare_ make a pass at Eye Patch, so she let all of that excess sexual frustration out on her own Connor, who'd clearly noticed the sudden spike in her sex drive but thankfully had no idea the reason.

She was fairly sure Eye Patch didn't know the reason, either. If he _had_ figured it out, he wouldn't have passed up an opportunity to capitalize on that. Except maybe he would.

Despite his… _forwardness_… on that first night, he hadn't made any more suggestions to her; in fact, he seemed to be behaving much like her own Connor used to behave—shy, bashful, carefully avoiding anything sexual. When her Connor wasn't looking, he'd reach out and touch her in the most heartbreakingly tender and chaste ways. He'd settle his hand on the small of her back, avoiding touching her bum; brush her hand with his, and then pull his away like he'd done something wrong; he'd stand close to her, close enough that his breath would stir her hair and he could breathe her scent, but he wouldn't touch her.

It was like she was a ghost, something he _couldn't_ touch. He wanted desperately to touch her, to do _more_ than touch her, but he didn't _dare_ do it. Perhaps he saw himself as an intruder in this world, in their lives. At times she wondered if being here, with her—with _them—_made him remember and miss his own Abby that much more. But that wasn't the sort of thing she could just _ask_ him.

Her heart wrenched for him every time he caught her eyes—all sadness and despair and long-dead memories and painful hope. Often when she was with _her_ Connor—holding him, kissing him, touching him at all—she'd catch him staring at them, his face stony but his good eye betraying a range of emotion. Jealousy, sadness, pain, lust. More than once she had to stop herself from telling him to come join them; and as the days went on, she had to be more and more on her guard against her own impulses. Connor would _not_ take kindly to her climbing onto Eye Patch and sucking he lips off his face.

She didn't know _what_ to do about her dilemma. The longer he was there, the more and more attached she was getting to him. She couldn't stand the thought of him getting a new identity and then disappearing from their lives forever; at the same time, she was equally concerned that he might _not_ leave, that he'd stay there in the flat and in their _lives_ for a long, long time. Even if he moved out and found a new place to live, he'd still be _there _and Abby wouldn't have a moment's peace from herself.

Fortunately, working at the Arc meant that, at the very least, their work left them with little time to think of too much else. Concentrating on not becoming birdie-snacks for the rampaging angry terror birds and outrunning Christine Johnson's flunkies kept the _threesome_ fantasy out of her head all day. She was so exhausted she didn't have time to drool over Connor in the tuxedo, a sight that might normally have made her whimper.

It was late in the evening by the time they stumbled back into the flat, exhausted and dirty and still wearing their pilfered and ruined 1930s finery. Eva stirred, her ears pricked forward in interest; she came over to smell them, taking in the new and interesting scents sticking to them. That had become routine over the past days: they'd come home and Eva would want to take in every single solitary scent molecule.

"Not now, Eva," Connor grumbled as he and Abby made their way to the stairs. "We're not in the mood."

Eye Patch Connor was waiting for them, wearing a pair of Connor's jeans and a t-shirt that read _Come to the Dark Side (We Have Cookies)_ on it. He raised his eyebrows at their apparel, his lips curling up slowly in a grin.

"Do I _want_ to know what you were up to?" He asked. He didn't already know—he wouldn't, of course. They'd figured that out a few days ago.

Though he knew about anomalies, and the anomaly project, and seemed to know most of the same people they did, it was clear that Eye Patch's timeline had skewed from their timeline some time in the past. He hadn't the faintest clue who Christine Johnson was or what was so important about the artefact—so much for hoping he could help them there—didn't recognize Becker or Sarah or Quinn's names, and didn't know anything about what they were currently working on. Connor seemed genuinely pleased, though, and they both tried to explain it to her. It meant, she gathered, that Eye Patch's timeline wasn't the logical future for _them._ She supposed that made sense—and it was worth being relieved about.

"Big birds," Connor grumbled in reply. "Really big. And mean. And scary. I nearly lost a buttock today. I need a shower." He was undoing his shirt and trousers on his way to the bathroom.

Eye Patch had a hand over his mouth, but she could see that dimple in his cheek that meant he was grinning like a madman. Sometimes those little things, the little quirks and habits and involuntary reactions that made her remember that the two of them really _were,_ technically, the same man—it was an easy thing to forget. At moments like that she wondered: was he just like her Connor in his own world once? She knew he had a rough life in the hell he'd once lived in, but she couldn't help but wonder what, exactly, would turn her sweetly geeky Connor into… _this._

"It isn't funny, you know," she told him sternly, crossing her arms.

"Of course not," he said. He leaned casually on his crutches, looking her up and down slowly and appreciatively. "So what did you do that involved _him_ being in a tuxedo and _you_ being in _this_ creation?" He was eyeing the tear she'd made so she could tuck the dress up and run in it.

"Does it _matter?"_ She snapped. It came out much harsher than she'd intended.

"Hey, I'm sorry," he said, holding up his hands in that defensive way that Connor did. "It's just that what I remember about anomaly work didn't involve playing dress-up."

"We were bored, bogged down in this old house no one had been in since before the Second World War. It was either try on all the clothes or read newspapers dating from before my parents were sperm. Which would you do?"

He snorted and then laughed. It was the first time she'd seen this Connor laugh—he probably didn't have much of anything to laugh about in his world. He laughed longer and harder than her silly joke probably merited, but it seemed like once he started, he couldn't stop. Like it was a relief to know he could still do it. And it made her smile for the first time all day.

"In that case, I think I'd probably play dress-up, too," he said once he'd calmed down. He gave a sharp nod towards the closed bathroom door where the other Connor was using up all the hot water. "Kid looks pretty good in the tux."

His face was unreadable as he spoke and he didn't look away from the door. He probably just meant it as a casual observation, but those accidental filthy thoughts flooded her mind again. In her head she saw Eye Patch Connor pushing her Connor—in the tuxedo—up against a wall and snogging him breathless. The image alone was so hot her knees almost buckled. It shouldn't have been, but it was.

She turned quickly and joined her Connor in the shower, hoping he might help her with her 'problem'.

He was oblivious to her when she got into the bathroom. He was leaning forward on outstretched arms, braced against the shower wall, letting the hot water beat down on him. His back and neck were red, meaning he'd been like that for some time.

"Shove up," she ordered, climbing into the tub behind him.

He looked over his shoulder at her, is eyes drooping; she came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his shoulder. He turned in her arms and cupped her face in his hands. He kissed her, softly at first and then harder, mashing their lips together so hard it hurt. She gripped a handful of his hair in one hand and dragged her fingernails down his back with the other, hearing him hiss in pain. She felt and heard his growl, a low rumbling sound in his chest and throat. His hands left her face and instead grasped her hips, grinding against her and making her moan softly. His fingers were digging into her flesh and his teeth nipped at her lower lip.

He kissed and bit along her jaw and gently lipped the tender skin under her ear. She raked her nails down his back and stopped at his bum, digging her nails in and squeezing; he bit her neck in response.

"Our lives are a train wreck," he murmured against her shoulder.

"I know," she breathed. "And shower sex is dangerous." She didn't know why she was pointing that out—they were already intimately acquainted with the dangers of having sex in the shower and the last thing she wanted right now was to discourage him.

"Considering what we do for a living, I'd think fucking in the shower would rank pretty low on dangerous events."

A chill went up her spine when he swore, just because for him it was so illicit, something he never did. He was too sweet for that—which was what made it all the more exciting when he _did_ do it, especially when his voice got low and gravelly like it was now.

He roughly turned her around and pushed her flat against the back wall of the shower. The tile was cold on her bare skin and she squeaked, then groaned when she felt his hand slide down her hip and over the curve of her backside. This wasn't like Connor—normally he was slow and sensual and took his time to tease her and arouse her. But once in a while he'd proved to her that he could be rough and frankly she was glad. Especially now. She'd rather have had a good hard fuck than anything else.

He pressed her harder into the wall, crushing her breasts and her belly into the cold tile. He nudged her legs apart and she spread them as far as she could in the confines of the shower. His hand was between them in a second, two fingers sliding back and forth on her slick sex. She felt the reverberations in his chest as he purred softly, murmuring something incoherent and probably pornographic into her hair.

He slipped those two fingers inside her, in and out in a hard, fast rhythm that she copied with her hips. Then, too quickly, his fingers were gone, but before she could even make a noise of protest she felt the broad head of his cock take their place.

The pace was erratic, his hips driving against hers with no real finesse. He pinned her wrists to the shower wall with his hands, keeping her still under him. She bit her lip to keep from being _too_ loud and rocked back to meet every thrust, her little pleasured mewls punctuated by sharp cries when he bit down on her neck or her shoulders. The shower spray was starting to turn tepid, their hot water supply dwindling, but neither noticed or cared.

Behind her, Connor grunted and strained; he shifted her wrists so he could hold both in one hand while the other clumsily went between her and the tile wall. He bit down—_hard—_on her neck and pinched her clit, and she was gone. Her orgasm was explosive and intense, her body clenching around his and a strangled cry catching in her throat. Dimly, she was aware that Connor had slumped against her back, just as spent as she was. He breathed heavily and kissed the bite he'd just left, just as soft and tender and gentle as he'd been rough only moments before.

When they both had control of all their limbs back, they stood up on wobbly legs. Abby turned off the taps—so much for a proper shower tonight—and they remembered to wrap themselves in towels before walking across the hall from the bathroom to the bedroom. The dog was watching them curiously, her head tilted to one side. Eye Patch was on the sofa, flipping through channels on the TV and apparently unaware of what they'd been doing.

They shut the door behind them and fell, naked and dripping, into bed.

o…o

Despite exhausting herself with Connor, she couldn't sleep. Her mind was racing in a hundred different directions and whenever she _did_ catch a few minutes of sleep, she found herself having weird dreams. Nightmares were par for the course in their work, and for the most part she was used to having them and they didn't bother her so much—sharing a bed with Connor certainly helped—but after she woke up tonight from a dream in which Sesame Street's Big Bird was trying to kill her, she gave up trying to get any sleep and went to the kitchen for a snack.

It was just after midnight.

Just before exiting the room, she remembered their guest and quickly pulled some clothes on—a pair of Connor's pajama pants and one of her hoodies. The really dirty and increasingly vocal part of her brain wondered what Eye Patch Connor might do if she strolled out of the room stark naked. The thoughts of his numerous possible reactions made the hot excitement flare in her belly again.

Dammit, what was _wrong_ with her?

Two Connors was what was wrong with her. _Two_ of them! And both of them wanted her. And both of them would probably do anything she asked them to do.

She went to check on him on the sofa, a slice of cold leftover pizza in one hand. He was sprawled out, the blankets tangled in his legs. He had bed hair. Asleep he was so unaware and unguarded and, except for the eye patch, he looked _exactly_ like her Connor. She couldn't resist reaching down and pushing his hair off his forehead.

To her surprise, he brought a hand up and caught hers. She jerked in surprise but didn't tear her hand away. A smile came over his face, dimple and all, but his eye stayed closed.

"Couldn't stay away from me, could you?" He asked.

"I couldn't sleep is what I couldn't do," she said firmly.

"Me either," he said, pushing himself up and opening his eye. "Getting crawly and jittery."

"Oh!" She got up quickly and went to search through the clothes she'd dropped when she and Connor came home that evening. "I forgot—I got something for you," she said. She found what he was looking for and tossed it to him. A pack of cigarettes. "I figure—well, cold turkey's hard and it's not like you can just go down to the corner shop and get a pack, can you?"

Eye Patch Connor stared at the pack in his hands like it were some kind of holy relic. "Ta, love," he said softly, a reflexive endearment. Then he seemed to notice the slip and put a hand over his mouth. "Sorry, I didn't mean…"

"It's okay," she said. "I don't… I don't mind."

His face as tinged pink and he turned quickly away from her, plugging a cigarette in his lips and nearly lighting it before he stopped and lowered the lighter. "Probably shouldn't smoke in here, should I?" He asked rhetorically. "He'll make a fuss over the smell."

She grinned a little despite herself—her Connor hated the smell of cigarettes and Eye Patch Connor would know that. When he got up to go outside, she pulled a pair of boots on and followed.

"Mind if I join you?" She asked. He stared at her for a second before shaking his head and holding the front door open for her.

The night was crisply cool and the sky misty with a few patches of starry skies. The air smelled wet—it'd rain soon.

"So how come you couldn't sleep?" He asked, casually blowing a perfect smoke ring into the air. "Something that happened today?"

She shrugged and finished off her slice of pizza, then handed the crust to Eva, who'd followed her outside looking for a snack. "There's a reason they're called _terror_ birds," was all she said.

He nodded slowly. "Anomaly work was tough—keeping everyone else in the _world_ from knowing what was going on was almost more trouble than rounding up the prehistoric animals. 'Least, that's what I remember."

"It's stressful. As exciting as it is, it's always crazy. And when it's not crazy we're all on tenterhooks waiting for it to _turn_ crazy."

Silently, Eye Patch held the pack of cigarettes out to her.

"I quit years ago," she said.

"I know."

Pause.

What the hell, she thought. She took one and the offered lighter. One wouldn't hurt her too irreparably and her nerves needed calming. She took a long drag and flicked the ash off into the dirt.

They stood side-by-side in the cold, poisoning their lungs in silence. Abby couldn't help a grin as Eye Patch Connor blew another ring of smoke and then—quite impressively, she thought—fired a smaller one right through it. He smiled down at her, his face a little flushed.

He's showing off, she thought, then had to stop herself from giggling. Like a teenager trying to impress a girl. It was… _flattering._

"I told him I loved him," she blurted out suddenly. "Right after you left that time." She wasn't sure why she was telling him this—did she want Eye Patch to know she was firmly spoken for, or did she want to convince _herself_ that she was firmly spoken for? "I didn't… I didn't want anything to happen to him, to _either_ of us, without him ever knowing. So, thanks for that. I guess."

He didn't say anything right away. He finished off his cigarette and lit another, then flicked the extinguished butt off into the darkness somewhere, a habit she should have scolded him for but didn't.

"I'm glad," he said. "I bet you've spent _years_ carefully avoiding it, haven't you? Until then, anyway."

She nodded.

He leaned on the low stone wall, inhaling and letting the end of his cigarette droop. "Glad he'll get what I didn't get the chance to have." Then he shook his head, hard, ash flying all over and his hair flopping into his face. She saw him pass a hand over his eyes and for a split second she thought she caught a glimpse of a tear sliding out from under his eye patch.

He's _lonely,_ she realized. Eye Patch put up a wall, kept up a mask of apathetic impassiveness—or at least, he tried to. But he was slipping, and the more he saw the longing in his face when he looked at her and Connor together—or even just at _her—_betrayed the fact that he desperately wanted affection, human contact. He'd cultivated his shell and walls and utterly shut himself down inside as a means of survival.

Eva nudged his leg and he absently nudged her away, still deep in thought with his cigarette just sort of hanging in his lips. That he had a dog at all didn't surprise her—all of the post-apocalyptic movies and books her Connor had introduced her to tended to feature heroes who had attack dogs like this one for protection. But more than that, a dog was something to take care of. Something to love.

"She just wants your attention," she said. Eva whined and pawed at his leg.

"I know. Such a vicious guard dog, yeah?" His mouth twitched in a half-hearted attempt to smile. "You're a pill, you know that?" He asked the dog. "Pest," he said, finally scratching her ears.

"You say that, but you love the puppy," she teased.

Eye Patch stopped dead in mid-scratch and turned to her, his good eye wide and his eyebrows raised. He almost looked like he couldn't believe what she'd just said.

"What?" She asked.

He took a shuddery breath. "Abby—_my_ Abby—used to say that. All the time, whenever the dogs got on my nerves. She used to say, 'you love the puppies and you know it', even when they weren't puppies anymore." He pressed a hand to his forehead and over his eyes. His breathing went all shaky, his hands trembled; she reached out cautiously and put a hand on his shoulder. She felt every muscle tense underneath it but he didn't pull away.

"What happened to her?" She whispered, turning so she sat on the wall facing him. She didn't know why she was asking. Certainly it was weirdly morbid to ask how another version of herself met her end, and she didn't really expect he'd tell her. She expected him to tear way from her and tell her it was none of her goddamn business. But part of her thought that maybe talking about it might help ease the pain, just a little bit.

To her shock, he started to talk.

"There was an accident," he said. "One of our demolitions men set off an experimental grenade by accident, and she was too close. He didn't mean to do it—but it's not like that helped and there was nothing left of him afterwards to yell at."

His candid tone did nothing to lessen the gristly image in her head of the aftermath of such an 'accident'. "An explosion?"

He shook his head.

"So then how…?"

"I shot her."

Her gut plummeted and her eyes went huge and wide. She couldn't fathom _why_ he would do that—_any_ reason he'd hurt Abby…

"Head wound," he answered before she could ask. "Flying mortar. It was… awful. Whole back of her head was gone. She was dead before I shot her. She stopped being Abby when she was hit—her heart just didn't stop beating." He trembled slightly, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the wall.

"So you…?"

He shrugged. "I told her I loved her and I kissed her goodbye and then… and then it was over." He hunched low, hanging his head. "I died that day. I thought I had nothing left to live for. I just _existed,_ keeping my men alive and trying to keep the Predators away." He looked down at her. "And then your Connor did some… _whatever_ it was he did with DNA and anomalies and I saw you and…" he sighed. "You're just like her, you know. I'm not your Connor at all, and he's not me. You've seen that—"

"Mostly."

"But you—you're my Abby, all over. It's like nothing can change you. And I just…"

He reached up to touch her and then snapped his hand back, like he was afraid to touch her; she caught hold of his hand and gently unfurled is clenched fingers, then brought his hand up to rest it on her cheek and covered it with hers. He was shaking.

"I can't help myself—sounds like a cop-out, but it's true."

"You've been alone for a long time."

"It isn't that—or at least, it isn't _only_ that. It's like I'm seeing a ghost. It'd be one thing if you just _looked_ like her. That I could deal with. It wouldn't be easy, but I could live with it. But you _are_ her. You're _Abby._ You're _my_ Abby. And I—I just—I can't—"

"It's okay," she whispered. She stroked his hair and settled her free hand on his scarred, whiskered cheek. She ran her fingers along the strap of his eye patch and the visible part of the scar over his left eye. He flinched and stopped her, grabbing her hand.

"No, Abbs."

"Why?"

He didn't answer. He looked like he hadn't actually _thought_ of a rebuff for that question. So she reached up and gingerly slid the eye patch away, and this time he let her. She traced her fingers over the scar, feather-light. His white eye flinched, but he didn't move away. She leaned forward and kissed his temple, where the scar started, and the bridge of his nose where it ended.

He turned his head sharply and pressed a kiss to her palm, grasping tightly onto her hand and crushing all of her fingers together. It was a tender kiss, his lips soft and his stubble sharp on the sensitive skin of her palm. It was _electric,_ the touch sending jolts up her arm, into her chest and pooling hot between her thighs. Her breath hitched and her heart raced. Her head spun and her thoughts didn't know whether they wanted to race or stop all together. Oh, god, it felt good. Her reaction—physical and emotional—was way out of proportion with the simple, tiny touch of his mouth on her hand.

She cupped the back of his head and pulled him down to her so she could kiss him. She meant for it to be just a little peck but he wasn't willing to leave it so chaste. He wrapped his arms around her and it felt like he was pouring his heart and soul into that kiss—years worth of longing and mourning the last days of watching her and lusting for her all making the kiss fiery and hot and turned her to jelly in his arms. She purred and clutched him, parting her legs so she could wind them around his hips. He was hard and she wasn't wearing anything under those thin pajama pants.

He parted slightly and licked his lips. His hair was mussed from her hands; hers was probably similarly messed, from him tugging on it as he kissed her breathless. Her mind was all cloudy. He tugged hard on the sweatshirt zipper, opening it and exposing her naked torso to the night chill.

He left a trail of stinging kisses down her neck as a hand cupped one breast. He kneaded the soft flesh, his calloused and scarred hand gentle. He pinched her nipple until it peaked, and she keened against his neck and rolled even closer to him.

"Oh, that feels good," he groaned, echoing her sentiments exactly.

"Yeah…" she sighed.

He turned his attention to her other breast as he lipped her neck. The elastic waist of her borrowed pajama bottoms did nothing to stop his hand from slipping inside. His fingers came in contact with her sex and they both moaned—she was slick with her own arousal and semen from her earlier encounter in the shower. He fingered her roughly, rubbed her clit with his thumb. She was pushing against his fingers and he was back to kissing her again, greedily swallowing her groans and her sighs.

He withdrew his fingers and she protested noisily—_too_ noisily. He studied the digits, slicking the wet over them.

"You fucked him," he growled. It wasn't a malicious tone—quite the opposite. It was rough and gravelly and lusty. "I heard you earlier. I never wanted to jump into someone else's shower so bad in my whole life."

Eye Patch Connor, in the shower. With her. And her Connor. She whimpered—in her head she saw herself with her arms and legs wrapped around one of them, pressing him against the shower wall, while the other was behind her. There was a fresh flood of moisture between her thighs that got even _more_ intense when he slowly licked his fingers clean just inches from her face. She kissed him again—she tasted herself on his lips and his tongue.

"Connor…"

This wasn't her Connor. She shouldn't have been doing this. Eye Patch wasn't her Connor and if her Connor knew what she was doing he'd probably have fits. But the Connor in her arms was warm and wonderful and despite the forcefulness of his kiss he was trembling, and good god he was beautiful and she couldn't help herself. The feelings he stirred in her were similar to the ones she felt for her Connor, but at the same time they were different, like he was a whole different person. Because he _was_ a different man…

Eye Patch broke the kiss but she followed him when he backed up, trying to keep contact with his lips. He planted his hands on her shoulders to hold her back and she made a disappointed little mewl. She wanted more, _more_ of him.

"You're not my Abby," he panted. "You're not her. You look like her and you act like her and you talk like her and… and, god, you even _smell_ like her. But you're not."

"I don't want to replace your Abby," she whispered. "I'm not trying to. But I can… _help._ Can't I?" She reached for his waistband but he took a step back.

"I'm not your Connor, either. I'm _really_ not your Connor. This isn't… it's not…" he was having trouble finding the right words, probably due in part to the fact that most of his blood was otherwise occupied. The other reason was because he was still _a_ Connor, and he still had trouble with words. "I don't wanna hurt him, that kid in there."

Leave it to Connor to talk sense at a time like this. All she wanted to do was pop the button off those jeans and savage him, but she knew he was right. She wriggled away from him and slid off the wall. She smoothed her hair down and zipped her sweatshirt back up before going back into the flat. Her Connor was waiting, leaning over the railing in his boxers when they came inside.

"I was wondering where you'd got to," he said. "What were you two up to?" He asked the question slowly and narrowed his eyes.

Abby walked over and nuzzled his neck. "Just talking," she lied.

He sniffed her cautiously and wrinkled his nose, turning away from her. "You smell like a cigarette. You weren't smoking, were you?"

Connor hated the smell of cigarettes and made a fuss over it anytime he was around anyone who smoked. She was about to open her mouth to fess up when Eye Patch spoke.

"Don't be silly, she quit years ago. She was outside with me and _I_ was smoking. Smell sticks to everything."

"Oh," Connor said sheepishly. "I'm going back to bed then. Sorry, Abbs. 'Night." He threw Eye Patch Connor a polite nod and kissed the top of her head before going back to their room.

"Why'd you do that?" She asked the other Connor. "He wouldn't've done anything if he knew I was smoking. He might've had a bit of a sulk but that wouldn't last ten minutes."

He shrugged. She waited for him to answer but after several moments realized he wasn't going to.

"Hey," he murmured just as she was about to go back to her room. When she turned, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her softly. "'Night, Abbs."


	5. Chapter Four

I get into a little of Connor's POV here. And some Connor-on-Connor action, too. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to be received, so please go easy on me. There have been rewrites galore on the scene in question. (It also bears mentioning that it's my first m/m scene. Ever. Not that I'm trying to shift the blame or anything…)

Due to being stupidly long-winded as I am, I've had to squeeze two extra chapters into the story; this one, and the one following it. Great for you guys, but kind of annoying for me. D'OH!

o…o

Three more days, three more nights. Abby was past trying to deny it anymore—she was falling for Eye Patch Connor and falling _hard. _He'd stand near her and her heart would flutter excitedly, and he'd smile at her and her knees would buckle. She was absolutely _hopeless._ When her Connor's DNA anomaly experiment produced seventeen extra Connors months ago, she'd been tempted by 'orgy' thoughts, and upon seeing Eye Patch again she was thinking of threesomes—but those were just naughty fantasies. In the end she just wanted to go to sleep with her _own_ Connor. This time, it was different.

The 'threesome' fantasy was still there, rampaging in her thoughts and ruining all her pants, but she was getting _really_ attached to their visitor. Her feelings for Connor were still just as strong as ever—she loved him, absolutely loved him to bits—but she couldn't avoid the fact that she was falling in love with Eye Patch. Breath-catching, heart-fluttering, thought-scrambling, Dean-Martin-playing-in-her-head, _stupid_ in love.

And she felt horribly guilty. This was nothing but a betrayal of Connor. He was sweet and he was totally and implicitly trusting of her, and here she was steadily falling in love with another man. Sort of. Except not really. Except, yeah, he _was_ a different man.

How the hell was she supposed to deal with this? Strictly speaking, Connor and Eye Patch were the same man; they had the same DNA and the same fingerprints. They had a lot of the same little habits and quirks—like the irritating Yorkshire habit of punctuating every other sentence with the word 'yeah'—the same background, and they sounded the same and dressed the same, now that Eye Patch wasn't wearing his leather getup anymore and was living in Connor's closet, and they even kissed her the same. (Though her Connor wasn't aware of that.)

Except for every similarity, there were glaring differences. Aside from the obvious physical differences, Eye Patch had far more confidence and was a much more dominant personality than her Connor, more emotionally stunted, less trusting, far more alert; he swore all the time where her Connor hardly did at all; he was also left-handed, which came as a shock, and when asked about it he said he'd always been a lefty, which neither he nor Connor could explain in an entire afternoon of hypothesizing. They all flagrantly broadcast that they were very much individuals.

The worst part of the whole situation was that she couldn't make herself feel guilty for falling for the other Connor, because she loved her boyfriend just the same. Her guilt was over potentially hurting him, not for her own feelings.

Abby's head hurt from thinking so she went back to concentrating on Eva and their after-work walk. The dog had gotten much better over the last week, slowly getting used to being a pet rather than being a constantly-on-guard attack dog in a world full of Future Predators. She'd stopped growling angrily at everyone on the street and they didn't have to be so on-guard with her anymore. It was always her and Connor who had to walk the dog—they couldn't let Eye Patch outside.

Speaking of which…

"Hey, it's still daylight!" She hissed at him as she came back to the flat to find him casually standing outside on the corner, smoking. "You shouldn't be out here!"

"Just wanted a fag," he growled. He let her push him the whole way back down to the front door.

She put Eva back into the flat and turned her attention back to him. "Where's Connor? Does he know you're out here?"

He shrugged.

"Come on, get back inside!" She scolded, taking him by the arm and pushing him indoors. He wasn't supposed to be outside during the day, lest someone see him. They still hadn't told anyone at the Arc about him and _definitely_ didn't want to risk him getting into any trouble.

"Oh, come on!" He whined. "Fuck—don't _you_ start on me too, yeah? I just wanted a fag. And some fresh air."

She let the irony of that particular combination slide as she slammed the door and locked it, preparing to tell him off.

"_There_ you are!" Connor was standing at the top of the stairs with his mobile up to his ear. He switched it off. "I was about to phone you. I'm sorry, Abby, I didn't mean to let him slip away—I went to the loo and while I was gone he got out!"

Eye Patch clenched a fist. "'Got out'?" He repeated, indignant. "What am I, one of your animals? I'm not a captive, I'm not your prisoner."

"No, but we have to be _careful,"_ Connor said. He looked worried—actually _frightened,_ she thought. "You know as well as I do what might happen if you get too careless."

"Oh for fuck's sake, kid, stop being such an ass." Despite his harsh words, his voice was gentle, soft, and his gaze even softer. Her Connor was glaring, too, but like Eye Patch there was a softness to it.

Abby looked curiously back and forth between the two of them, but the question—and its answer—were maddeningly just out of reach.

"You're not Marty McFly and Doc Brown, yeah?" Eye Patch was saying. "We're not fucking around with our own future and past. For me there _is_ no future where I came from and since we're clearly different people, my being here isn't going to cause irreparable damage to the space-time continuum. So chill out. I just wanted to go outside for a smoke, since you won't let me do it in here or hang out a window to do it."

"You know the rule, you've gotta do that at night, when no one will see."

"For christ's sake!" He exploded. His fists were clenched and shaking, his face turning red with suppressed anger. "I'm going stir crazy here. Even prisoners get to go outside a couple of times a day! Fuck. I can't go anywhere. I can't _do_ anything. I'm going crackers. I can't even walk down to the corner shop for my own cigarettes, can I? You've been buying 'em for me since I don't even have a sodding ID!"

Connor recoiled, looking guilty.

"Hey, c'mon!" Abby stepped in, getting right up close to Eye Patch and staring him down. "You think having you as a secret is a walk in the bloody park for _us?_ We've been trying to figure out what to tell people—what we're gonna do! It's hard enough hiding the animals here—which we're not even supposed to have—but doing it with a whole human being is just that much harder. _Especially_ when it's an impossible fucking _bloody-minded_ human being!" She took a deep breath, then another, trying to calm herself down. "I'm sorry you're feeling cooped up, but until we get this whole mess sorted out you're just gonna have to stay here and stay _hidden,_ okay?"

He shook his head hard and tangled one hand in his shaggy hair—she knew that meant that he _knew_ she was right, but didn't want to face up to it. She began to relax a little bit.

"Screw this," he spat, then grabbed a coat and ran out the door.

"Goddammit!" Connor exclaimed, tripping over Abby as they both tried to get down the stairs to the front door at the same time. "We've gotta go _find_ him!"

Eye Patch was quick and had disappeared in the time it took them to get to the front door. They split up and searched for him, but after a search of the neighbourhood they came up with nothing. There was no one they could call, not the police or anyone else, to report him missing. After nearly two hours, Abby met up with Connor again to report she'd found fuck-all.

"What do we _do?"_ She asked, hugging him tight and burying her face against his chest. "We can't just leave him…"

"I know, Abbs. Looks like we should call the team and let 'em know what's going on. At least everyone has security clearance and no one _there_ will talk—better than calling he cops, yeah?"

She nodded and he kissed her cheek.

"I'm sure he's fine," he said gently. It sounded like he wanted to reassure _himself_ as much as he wanted to reassure her.

Connor's mobile had a flat battery, and her phone was in the pocket of her jacket, which she'd left in the flat, so they went back, hoping fervently that Eye Patch wouldn't do anything irreparably stupid in the time it took for them to explain themselves to Lester and get the soldiers working to find him.

To her shock—and horror—there was a missed call and a voicemail. Fearing the worst, she played the message loud enough for both of them to hear it.

"_Hello, this is Detective Constable Graham—this message is for Miss Abigail Maitland. We have in custody a Connor Temple who was detained at a public house for starting a fight…"_

She smacked her forehead so hard that the sound startled Eva and the _Diictodons._ She didn't know whether she wanted to scream or cry or just fall on the floor and laugh until she threw up.

"What an_ idiot,"_ Connor growled. "But at least we know where he is now. I've got a good mind let him sleep in jail just to teach him a lesson."

"He'd think of it as a holiday from us, the prat. Anyway, if you're in jail then how do we explain you turning up to work?" She grabbed her head and clenched her hands in his hair. "My god, what a fucking _moron!_ What a… what a… fuck, I'm so angry I can't even think of an insult for him! He's lucky he's in a police station so I can't _murder him_ when I get my hands on him!"

"Hey, Abbs, calm down," he soothed, rubbing her back until she stopped shaking with suppressed rage. "There's no sense in going mad over this."

"You realize what could happen here? He could get _you_ in trouble! Aren't you just a _little_ bit concerned about that, Conn?"

He shrugged. "Just go and get him, yeah?"

"I suppose I should. What happened to letting him sleep in jail?"

His grin almost made her feel a little less murderous. "Honestly? Sleeping on a prison cot surrounded by cameras is nothing compared to you when you're angry."

That made her laugh, though it was a bitter and half-hearted one. "Guess you're not coming with me, huh?"

"How can I?" He asked. "What do we tell the police, that I'm his identical twin brother with the same name who happens to be a few years younger?"

"Good point."

So Abby left on her own, still fuming quietly, to go and get Eye Patch from the police station, anticipating the worst the whole way. Someone he beat up would press charges. The owners of the pub would press charges. Her Connor would have to bear the brunt of the consequences for _his_ stupidity. Or else Lester would find out about it—inevitably he _would_ find out about it—and he'd deem the other Connor too dangerous to live in their world and force them to send him to his death in his own world. And then he'd probably sack both of _them,_ because they did the stupidly irresponsible thing and kept him hidden and let him escape. And _then_ Lester would let Connor flounder and have to answer to Eye Patch's stupidity, with no way to explain it away and no Eye Patch to prove their story.

She was coming up with all of the conceivable horrible scenarios and got steadily angrier and angrier until she stopped at the police station, ready to bite his head off the second she saw him.

"I am _so sorry_ about all of this," she said to the officer who'd left the message on her phone. "He's not usually like this."

"Yeah, we figured as much—he _looks_ like trouble all over, but his record is positively squeaky clean."

"I think he's just had a rough day," she offered lamely. People who had 'rough days' didn't go to bars and start fights. But the constable nodded slowly and led her to where Eye Patch Connor was being held.

"All right you," he said firmly. "We've got it all sorted out. There's no charges _this time_ because it's a first offense, but you'd best be careful. I'll not stand for this behaviour in my jurisdiction!"

He said nothing, only nodded and lumbered out to meet Abby. He had blood on his face from a nosebleed and a nice bruise forming on the apple of his right cheek. His hair was a mess and his t-shirt was ripped, but other than that he didn't look much worse than he usually did.

"_You_ are in _so much trouble!"_ She yelled at him, jabbing him in the chest with all five fingers. "D'you have _any idea_ how worried I was? You're lucky we're in a police station and I can't kick your sorry ass _right here!"_

The detective constable nodded, apparently approving of her outburst and threats. "Sommat tells me he'll have it worse at home with his girlfriend than if he stayed the night here," he said to the desk sergeant.

She scolded him and berated him the entire way back home, getting angrier and louder the whole way until she was practically screaming in his ear when she parked outside the flat. He just sat there and took it meekly, staring stonily at his lap and not bothering to try and argue with her. The only time his expression changed at all was when he winced when her voice got into those eardrum-perforating upper registers.

"—and you'd better start behaving yourself around here until we can figure out what the hell we wanna do with you—until we figure out if we even _want_ you here anymore at all! You're lucky we don't just shove you back through your fucking anomaly—"

Connor looked up from his laptop as Abby and Eye Patch came up the stairs and into the living room—though he'd heard Abby screaming the second her car pulled up. Eye Patch looked properly scolded and possibly still drunk, but he wasn't raising a finger to try and defend himself when she started hitting him. That was what Abby did when she was afraid. When she was scared, she got angry and violent. She'd done it to him more than once when he'd put himself in harm's way for her or someone else, and the only thing that made the blows hurt less was knowing that she did it because she was terrified of losing him.

She was doing it to the other him now, because she was equally afraid of losing _him._ He even saw the beginnings of angry tears in her wild blue eyes.

It should have bothered him, really, to see her so passionately angry at the other Connor, especially knowing what it meant when Abby became passionately angry at someone. But it didn't. Instead it was kind of… weirdly sexy, knowing another version of _him_ so attractive. Not worrisome or concerning or upsetting. Six months ago when the same Connor had his tongue down her throat, he'd bristled with barely-contained jealousy—but strangely now the thought didn't bother him. Maybe it was a little security and confidence that came from knowing that Abby wanted _him._

Or maybe it was something else all together.

He'd have been lying to himself if he said he wasn't getting attached to their foundling. When he wasn't being approximately bloody-minded and _stupid,_ he was nice to have around. As much as he played at acting like a regular hardass, even _Connor_ could tell that it was just that: an act. They shared a brain, after all, and he could see through the façade. It was hard not to feel for him, hurt for him—the more they learned about the hell his life had been, the more Connor's heart ached for him. He was so sad, so lonely. He desperately wanted affection. He must have. He was still Connor, after all. It was like he was an abused and abandoned puppy—impossible not to want to help.

And, well… he _liked_ him, he admitted to himself. He refused to let himself go any further as to what that 'like' might be, however.

It would have been another flagrant lie if he said he didn't find his counterpart attractive. Maybe it was self-centredness or vanity, but he privately thought that the other Connor was kind of hot. Rugged action-hero kind of hot. Ish. Perhaps it was a mild case of dirty irony that not too long ago, before this all started, he'd had a good look at himself in a towel in Abby's full-length mirror. He hadn't seen himself from head-to-toe like that in _ages—_the vanity mirror in the bathroom was too small for that and he didn't actually _own_ a mirror himself—and he'd been more than a little pleased with what he saw there. He'd put on muscle chasing dinosaurs over the years and had lost the last of his puppy fat—was it still called that if he had it after the age of twenty?—and after privately putting on a few poses, he'd decided rather egotistically, 'yeah, I'd fuck me'.

But right now was not the time to be thinking about that. Abby was trying to punch holes in him, so he put his computer aside to go and break up the one-sided fistfight.

"Abby, it's okay," he said, taking her by the shoulders and backing her up a few feet. She didn't struggle, which was good because Abby could still take him in a fight any day. "Let him be, try and calm down."

"I _am_ calm!" She hissed. "But it's like he doesn't _get it!"_

The other Connor was hanging his head, his hands behind his back, looking properly ashamed. He wasn't looking at either of them.

"I'll have a word with him, yeah?" He offered. "Go take a walk or have a bath or something, try and cool your head."

Her shoulders drooped and she sighed. "I guess you're right. And anyway, if I kill him we'll just need to find a really good place to hide the body and let's face it—we don't have that kind of time."

Abby settled on going for a walk, taking her iPod and turning it up full blast. It wasn't until she was gone around the corner that Eye Patch spoke again.

"She's pretty cross, isn't she?"

Now it was _his_ turn to be angry; not for the stupidity of starting a bar fight—which was plenty to get angry about—but because of how angry he'd made Abby. "No, ya fucken _think?"_ He snapped.

"I've forgotten how shrill she can be when she gets like that."

"You're lucky she didn't knock your other eye out."

"I know." He fidgeted nervously. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I was stupid. I did stupid shit. I wasn't thinking. You've both been taking a huge risk in keeping me here and I know it's not easy—I just went a little bit _mad,_ I guess."

"You apologize to Abby yet?" He asked.

"No."

"You'd better do that when she gets back. She was angrier than I was—and with a good reason." He made himself as big as possible, but he wasn't used to confronting an adversary exactly the same height and build as he was. "What were you _thinking,_ anyway?"

"I wasn't—"

"Damn right you weren't!" Now that Abby wasn't there, he could let all of his own anger off. "It's one thing if you just wander off—granted that's fucking _stupid,_ too, but at least you wouldn't be attracting too terribly much attention, yeah? But you went off and got drunk and started throwing punches at a pub! Do you _realize_ what could have happened?"

"I—"

He didn't feel like letting Eye Patch talk so he ploughed on like a tank. "If _you_ fuck up here, it's _me_ that has to deal with it because _you_ don't exist in this world! If you do something illegal and they can trace the fingerprints back to me, _I'm_ the one who has to pay for it! Did you stop to think about that? _At all?"_

This time he stayed silent and Connor went on.

"I know you haven't lived in a normal world in ages and you're up to your leather butt in the effects of that, and I know it sucks to be you right now, and I'm _sorry,_ but once you've figured out what the hell you want to do we can actually let the Arc know what's going on—then every single solitary little _fart_ you make won't have such huge ramifications! That's what she was so angry about—not that you ran off, but that you didn't stop and use the brain we _know_ you have to think about what could possibly happen and—"

No matter how many times he looked back on it, he was never sure whether he just didn't see it coming, or if he saw it coming but didn't want to stop it. Either way, he found himself swiftly quieted by a searing hot kiss. A soft warm mouth, sharp stubble, the vague taste of beer and cigarette smoke, the slow burn of heat low in his abdomen; hands were clamped hard on his arms, his fingers digging in through the layers of shirts and coat. The kiss was hard and demanding and forceful and knee-buckling and Connor was getting _quite_ into it before the still-active parts of his brain pointed out that not only was he standing there kissing _another man,_ but it was also another version of _himself._

It was Eye Patch who broke the kiss, tearing away just as roughly as he'd kissed him. He kept his hands planted on his shoulders and only parted enough that he could watch him carefully with his one good eye.

"God damn, you're cute when you're fuming," he rasped. His voice was low and gravelly and his breath was coming hard. Eye Patch didn't give him a second to respond before he pulled him back and crushed his lips in another of those hot, hard kisses.

Did _he_ kiss like this, Connor wondered? Or was this just another of those differences between himself and the other Connor? He kissed him back, all of his higher brain function succumbing to the rush of heat and excitement and the biting kiss. No wonder Abby had let this guy snog her so thoroughly.

Finally—both breathless and trembling slightly—they parted. Connor stood there dumbly, but held his intense one-eyed gaze. It wasn't like looking in a mirror at all, he mused silently. Staring himself in the eye in a mirror felt completely different than locking eyes with this alternate version of himself. The good eye was the same dark brown under the same eyebrows on the same _face,_ but looking him in the eye felt like looking at someone completely different. He'd noticed that, somewhat absently, over the last week since he fell into his life—that being face-to-face with this man was being face-to-face with someone else.

"This should be weird," he blurted out. He meant to keep the candid observation to himself but it burst from his lips unintentionally. Eye Patch smirked so he added, "Shouldn't it be?"

"Why? You know you've been curious about other guys for years—you know that and I know that. You just never wanted to say anything. I'll give you a clue: you _are_ attracted to other men."

"Wait, _what?"_ He frowned. "Wait,_ really?_ How d'you kn—okay, stupid question, that. Never mind. Who was it? Someone I know?"

"Stephen."

Connor felt his chest clench at the mention of his late friend's name. He'd been close to—and ridiculously envious of—Stephen during their time together. He was everything Connor _wasn't._ He was cool and confident and collected, no matter the circumstance, and left a trail of sighing women behind him wherever he went. He always knew what to say, and when, and how. He was never lost for words and never did or said anything that left the rest of the team staring at him with their mouths open, marvelling at his stupidity. He'd had the odd flight of fancy about him, too—privately, in dreams that he never told a _soul_ about. Stephen's death had been a major blow to the team, professionally and personally, and it was one that, like Cutter's, still hurt for a long time after.

"So Stephen… and you…"

"It was after Abby—my Abby—you know… anyway, Stephen was still alive for a few years after. And, well, he was _there. _Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, actually… makes a lot of sense." Then he shook himself. "But that's not what I meant! I meant this is weird as in—well, I mean, we're technically the same person. Aren't we? I mean, you're me. I just snogged myself!"

"No—I'm not you. Not anymore I'm not. I'm not you anymore and you're _definitely_ not me." His voice was harsh, defensive. When Connor instinctively recoiled in surprise, he relaxed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, didn't mean to snap at you."

"S'okay."

"Just, being here and watching you—made me realize how much I've changed. I always knew I was different now than I was, but this, you and me face to face like this—we're two totally different people."

"It's like identical twins," he said. "You know—for all intents and purposes biologically and physically the same person, same DNA and everything, but up here—" he tapped his forehead, "—they're two different people."

"Yeah. I'm not anything like you—I haven't been in a long, long time. I think we stopped being the same when my timeline diverged from yours." His smile was lopsided, and Connor understood all at once why Abby would do anything he asked her to if he smiled at her like that. "Anyway, being here and seeing _you—me—_the way I used to be side-by-side with how I am _now_… to be honest, it's a bit of a shock. I didn't realize how much everything had changed."

"I guess living the way you do—the life you have and all the shit you go through all the time—must have an effect on you. 'Specially for years on end."

"You're a breath of fresh air, you know. Feels good, knowing that _I'm_ not the inevitable. That you stay the way I used to be—all sweetness and stupidly optimistic. Reminds me how things used to be. How I used to be. How _life_ used to be." His smile quirked up and went all the way up to his eye, dimple and everything. His face and neck and ears flushed pink as he turned away and said, "To be honest, I like it. A lot. S'why I—you know…" he trailed off, bashful, like he couldn't finish the sentence properly.

Connor smirked—maybe there was a little more of his old self still dormant than he was willing to admit.

"I get it, you know. I think."

"Of course you do."

Eye Patch was still close, close enough that he could smell him—a tinge of sweat and old cigarettes, beer, dog, and something musky-sexy that he couldn't identify and that scrambled his thoughts—and he clutched him closer. He clutched his hips—he had really narrow hips, didn't he?—and it felt perfectly natural, like there was nothing at all weird about standing there in the front room of the flat he shared with his _girlfriend_ with his arms around another man. Who was really _himself_ from an alternate timeline.

He closed his eyes and licked his lips. The callused pad of a thumb flicked over his lower lip. He kissed the other Connor this time, taking him by surprise for just seconds before he responded, no less passionate than the first time. He kissed back hungrily, like he'd been dying to do this—and maybe he _had_ been—until they were both breathless and panting and flushed and wearing identical silly grins.

And then he kissed him again, just because Abby was right and that smile was pretty damn sexy and really hard to resist.

Nope—nothing weird about any of it.


	6. Chapter Five

I have _got_ to start being less wordy! Again I've had to cut a chapter into two when it got too long. This one ran away from me, but at least this time it didn't get pornographic without permission. (I intended it to be pornographic this time!) Anyway, I hope it lives up to expectations. There was supposed to finally be threesome!porn in this chapter but, obviously, it didn't work out that way. Sorry it's taking so long between updates now—work and life seem to have picked up steam on me! I hope to have the next chapter done in a week.

I also finally got the title changed! Big thanks to iEvenstarEstel for suggesting it!

o…o

An evening walk—a stomp, really—around the block and back with a lot of loud, angry music blaring in her ears succeeded in cooling her head. Or at least enough that she didn't want to grab Eye Patch Connor by his sexy neck and _throttle him_ to death. His frustration was completely understandable, but that still didn't excuse his recklessness. He still had enough similarities with _her_ Connor to know well enough what could happen. She was only _so_ sympathetic to him. If he'd done anything _really_ seriously bad, hurt anyone, done something _more_ illegal than just start a punch-out in a pub…

Abby hated to think about what might've happened. So she tried not to.

In any event, she was _much_ calmer after her walk and came back to the flat feeling infinitely better. She was sure Connor had given Eye Patch a talk—he was too angry _not_ to, however much he tried to hide it—and tried her best not to get herself too wound up. Her stomach knotted and she sighed. Indigestion, _again._ She reached into her pocket for some of those vile chalky antacids. Since joining the anomaly team she'd started buying them by the gross.

The lights were on in the flat; she could see clearly through the windows and see both Connors standing at the top of the stairs. They were standing close, talking. She couldn't help but smile.

And then her smile dropped away when her Connor leaned forward and kissed Eye Patch. _Really_ kissed him, arms around his hips and head slanted. There was no mistaking what _that_ kiss meant. And Eye Patch was kissing him just as fiercely. Neither of them looked surprised at the kiss—as if there was nothing to be surprised _about,_ like… like they'd done it before. Was this something they did when she wasn't here? Were they making out habitually behind her back? When had this started? She never thought that Connor might've fancied men, but then again—

—oh, they were kissing again.

Oh, god, it was hot. She knew her mouth was hanging open and she had that deer-in-headlights look and she just _couldn't… stop… staring._ A little croak escaped her throat as she tried to make her brain boot up again. It was like that threesome fantasy had just sprung to life.

They backed away slightly from one another and craned to peck each other on the lips one last time before stepping apart and going off to separate quarters of the flat. Abby dragged herself out of her fantasies and went to the door. Eva—carrying Sid by the scruff of his neck—trotted up to meet her at the top of the stairs. She absently patted the dog on the head and took the squirming _Diictodon_ from her and set him back on the floor; Nancy and Sid did _not_ enjoy being Eva's puppies.

"Hi."

"Hey, Abby. Feel better?" Her Connor asked from the couch where he was working on his laptop. His cheeks were a bit pink still, she noted.

"Yeah. The walk helped." _And so did watching you and Eye Patch snogging…_

The other Connor was standing by the stairs to the loft, as if deciding whether or not he should drag himself up to bed. He looked back over his shoulder at her and smiled softly.

"Hey."

Connor was giving him a pointed look and nodded towards Abby, like he was supposed to tell her something; she frowned and looked back and forth between them, wondering what it was.

"Go on," he said firmly.

Eye Patch hesitated for a second, then spoke. "I'm, uh—I'm sorry. I was a jackass. The kid had a go at me—" three sets of ears tinged red at the unintended double-meaning in that, "—and he told me off. So… yeah. I'm sorry."

She wanted to go over there herself now and kiss him. His lips were swollen from his kisses with Connor. What would they do if they knew she'd seen?

"S'okay," she said. "Mutual pissfit. If you promise to be careful, then I promise not to yell at you anymore."

He gave her a lopsided grin and a steamy look that she was _sure_ her Connor must've seen. Then he turned to go up the stairs. "C'mon, ol' bitch," he called to his dog, smacking his good leg. "Let's go to bed."

She sat on the arm of the couch and watched over Connor's shoulder as he worked on his laptop, but she couldn't make any sense of it. She rubbed his back and leaned forward to nuzzle him.

He gave a little involuntary shudder and paused to let her mouth a few kisses down the side of his neck. "I can't think when you do that—I've got stuff to do."

"You work too hard," she murmured. "Let's go to bed."

He didn't look at her. "If you're tired, you go. I want to try and make more sense of this."

She lipped his ear. "I saw, you know," she breathed, low and hot. "With him."

He froze, his expression blank as he tried to process what she just said. Then, eyes wide and face noticeably reddening, he snapped his laptop closed and then swallowed hard. "You—you did?" He squeaked, his voice high. "Oh, god, Abby! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean—I didn't know—I—I—"

She grinned and quirked her lips in a grin at his flustering. He didn't know _how_ he wanted to react to this—whether he wanted to be guilty or embarrassed or something else. It was cute. She moved his computer and took its place on his lap, kissed his cheek and then his lips, and that just confused him even more.

"Abby, what are you doing?"

She bit his neck. "I thought it was the hottest thing I've seen," she purred.

"Oh… oh, my…" he groaned as she lavished attention on his neck and pulled his shirt up so he could touch him. His stomach tightened under her fingers.

"You were into it—_really_ into it. Weren't you?"

"Uhm…" he didn't have to actually answer her. She rolled against his growing erection; he stilled her with his hands on her hips.

She went serious briefly—as serious as she could manage—and asked, "You like him, don't you?"

He looked away. "I, uh—I guess so."

"No, I mean you _fancy_ him."

He choked a little and his face turned so red she actually wondered where he was getting all the extra blood from. He wouldn't look at her until she turned his face with a hand on his cheek.

"It's okay, Connor."

"_What?"_

She steeled herself, took a deep breath, and smiled. "I fancy him, too."

Connor gurgled a little.

"D'you still love me?" She asked him sternly.

"Of course I do—"

"Good," she interrupted. She kissed his nose and he actually smiled. "I still love you. It's just, it's hard not to… _fantasize."_

His shocked expression evaporated and was replaced by a little sly grin. "Oh _really,_ now?" He craned to kiss her, deep and hot and hard. "You thought about both of us? Me and him, together, with you?" His voice got low and growly and she whimpered.

"Yeah." She sighed softly.

"I thought about it, too."

So she wasn't the only one having threesome thoughts, then. This was just getting better and better. "I snogged him," she admitted, feeling suddenly nervous. Yes, it was clear that Connor hadn't had much of a problem kissing their guest, but she still didn't know what his reaction to _her_ kissing him would be.

"I know," he rasped against her lips.

Okay, that was surprising. "You saw?"

He shook his head and nuzzled her ear. "I guessed." He must have noticed her surprised expression because he added, "I'm not as think as you dumb I am, you know."

She laughed a little, then asked, "You're not cross or anything, are you?"

"Naw. I've seen you making doe-eyes at him since he got here. And, really, you're only human, you know," he said as he tossed his hair back, grinning. "How can you resist the action-hero Connor Temple?"

This time she laughed harder, mostly because he was _trying_ to make her laugh and few people could make her laugh quite as easily as he could, and partly in relief. He wasn't cross.

There was a snort from upstairs and they both looked up towards the dark loft; Eye Patch must have been asleep.

"Let's go finish this in our room," she suggested. She gave his neck a sharp little nip that made him gasp raggedly, then got up and jerked her head towards the bedroom.

Abby closed the door in hopes—rather futilely, she knew—of minimizing the noise they were bound to make. The latch clicked and she felt Connor grab her by the shoulder and turn her around so he could push her back against the door.

"Oh, yes please," she purred. Then his mouth was on hers, hard and demanding, all tongue and sharp teeth. She groaned and melted into the door.

"This is so weird," he growled against her lips. "We should be cross with each other for wanting to fuck Eye Patch, not turned on by it."

She laughed breathily but didn't say anything back—Connor was a talker. Always talking. His life was a nonstop running commentary.

"At the very least, I should be jealous." He kissed along her jaw and down her throat, letting his stubble scrape her skin and make her shudder and sigh against him.

"Yeah, you should be," she conceded. He was more paranoid than jealous, though, often on edge, worried, unsure of himself; he was afraid she might leave him, find someone she wanted more. She used to think it was a ridiculous fear, until she stopped to realize how many years she'd spent outright rejecting him. Of _course_ he'd be scared. Part of her now was surprised he _wasn't_ jealous or cross that she'd been thinking about their foundling. But then, if he was having his own fantasies, then he wouldn't have been _able_ to be jealous.

She craned around and bit between his neck and shoulder, then sucked on the skin to mark him. Their usual rule was 'not where anyone else will see it!', but she didn't care enough to follow that rule right now.

"Not jealous, though. Just makes me wanna ask him to join us."

_Threesome!_ her mind screamed. Her knees buckled and he held her up. She felt him smile into her neck.

"You like that, don't you? You, me, him—all together?"

All Abby could do was whimper.

"If he wasn't asleep I'd say let's go for it," she ground out between biting kisses.

"We could go wake him. I wouldn't mind being woken up for a threesome," he said.

"You don't like waking up for love or money when you're tired," she reminded him. "And he's just the same."

"His loss, then. Guess I get you to myself for tonight."

She giggled again, but the sound died in her throat when he pushed her t-shirt up over her chest and pulled her bra down to expose her breasts. She shrugged out of her hoodie and yanked off her t-shirt as Connor laved his tongue over one breast. She deftly flicked open the button on his jeans and slipped her hand in to rub him slowly through his thin boxers; he thrust into her hand with a feral sound that excited her even further.

She gave him a shove in the direction of the bed and he took the hint, backing up without breaking contact with her. His open jeans drooped round his legs until they tripped him and he fell gracelessly to the floor, taking her with him and pulling them into a tangled, breathless heap.

As soon as she figured out he wasn't hurt, she looked him straight in the eye and declared frankly, "You missed." Then she pressed her face into his neck and laughed until she couldn't breathe.

"Close enough," he growled, not bothering to get up onto the bed. He tugged at the clasp of her bra until it came undone and he tossed it off to the side. He kicked the rest of the way out of his jeans and tried to take her leggings and his own shorts off at the same time but found it too mentally taxing.

"Need help?"

"That'd be nice. Or we could wait 'til I evolve a few extra sets of hands."

"Mm," she hummed softly, nuzzling his ear and sucking on his neck and leaving another love bite. She slipped out of her leggings and her knickers. "I'd like to see what you could do with a few more hands."

"Oh? Don't I do well enough with just the two I've got?" He punctuated the question by slipping a hand up her skirt and tracing a finger through the wet seam of her sex. He stroked and explored her folds with clever fingers and she arched into his touch. By now, after so many months together, he'd proven to be quite dextrous and knew just how to make her squirm—and she _loved_ it.

He slid the fingers smoothly in and out of her and matched the rhythm grinding the heel of his hand against her clit. She mewled with pleasure and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him. He kept his kisses slow and languid, no matter how she pulled on his hair or bit at him.

She was rocking her hips in time with his hand and fingers; she dragged his vest up over his head, and they broke their kiss just long enough for her to pull it off completely and toss it off somewhere to the side. She ran her hands over his bare chest, his back, up his shoulders, and then brought back to bury her fingers in his hair. She scratched lightly at his scalp and he sighed and purred a little, like a very happy housepet.

Still she was processing the fact that she hadn't been alone in her threesome fantasy—that Connor had thought about it, and _wanted_ it, as well aroused her almost more than the threesome fantasy itself. _Two_ of them, _two_ Connors at her command. One of them watching her with the other, having the two of them at the same time, the two of them with each _other_ while she watched…

Oh, yes…

She could feel her orgasm building, intense already, and she ground her hips into his hand, trying to encourage him to go faster. He lowered his head to bite down on her breast, then soothed the bite with his tongue. He nudged her head back slightly and kissed up her throat before sucking the sensitive skin near her ear into his mouth to mark her—clearly he didn't want to be the _only_ one going to work with visible hickeys—and she was so close. She encouraged him with her whimpers and her rolling hips.

"I love that sound," he growled into her neck. "Hearing you come undone…" He left hot, wet kisses down her neck and back to her lips. He bit her tongue and nipped at her bottom lip and she groaned and keened.

Her orgasm made her eyes roll back in her head and her whole body arched into his; blood rushed in her ears, but she could vaguely hear herself moan and whimper as she came; she clenched around his fingers and scored his shoulders. His hand and fingers slowed but didn't stop, drawing her pleasure out until she came back down to earth with a long, giddy sigh.

"Wow," she breathed, then she giggled.

He kissed her sweetly. "Thinking about having two guys at once will do that," he said. Now he was just saying it to torment her, because he knew it'd work. It didn't happen that way too often—Connor being the one teasing _her—_so he was prepared to take advantage of that for as long as he liked.

Very quickly, he picked her up off the floor and dumped her into their bed. He took off his boxers and she got rid of her skirt. He kissed her again, rough and insistent, before pulling her leg up around his hip. He leaned back slightly, raking his eyes up and down her body, his gaze so intense it was almost tangible as he looked at her. There was always something of a little awed disbelief in his eyes whenever he stopped to look at her like this, like he couldn't believe he was with _her,_ finally, after so many years hoping and pining. Sometimes it made her want to step through an anomaly and punch her past self for pulling his heartstrings like a yo-yo for so long.

Then he licked his lips and ran his hand up the back of her thigh to her backside and squeezed, and she stopped thinking about all those _used-to-bes._

When she realized he'd stopped moving, Abby reached down between them and wrapped her hand around his cock to guide him to her. He groaned when he pressed into her heat and she surged her hips forward, taking all of him all at once.

He kept one hand digging his fingers into the flesh of her ass, using his arm to keep the leg in place over his hip and opening her up to him; the other hand started wandering up and down her body, tickling delicately and pinching and scoring her skin with his blunt nails. She arched into every rough and powerful thrust, rolling her hips and making the coarse pubic hairs rub against her clit and setting stars off behind her eyes.

She had to reach her hands back to brace herself against the headboard as he pushed her back and back with every thrust.

He was murmuring and hissing against her neck, letting his mouth gallop away with him as his body sent hers to convulsing with pleasure, but the words all blurred together and she didn't know what he was saying. Nor did she care. He lipped her neck, bit down on her shoulder, kissed her lips roughly as he groaned, long and low, into her mouth.

Her breath was coming in short pants now and she felt the familiar tingle of another orgasm building. Above her, Connor clenched his eyes shut; she could see the muscles in his neck stand out as he strained and struggled to hold off just a little longer. She brought her other leg around his waist, taking him even further and sending sparks off low in her abdomen. She dug her heels hard into his backside, making him instinctively jerk forward and doing away with those last pesky air molecules between them. She gave a hard, sharp jerk of her hips that made him draw a ragged breath and thrust back just as hard.

"More," she ground out. She was so close it was almost agonizing. _"Harder."_

Now he was really straining, trying to keep going while complying with her demands.

She kissed him. "Just let go," she breathed.

He grunted. "You first."

She laughed breathily against his mouth and kissed his sweaty throat. He smelled sweaty and musky and positively delicious.

Determined not to come before she did, he lifted his hips slightly and brought his fingers to her already oversensitive clit. The combination was just what she needed—every thrust and the stroke of his fingers made her cry out a little louder until he hushed her with his mouth on hers.

He bit down on the pillow next to her to muffle his entirely too-loud moan and a deep shudder wracked his whole body as he came—he caught himself on his elbow to keep from squashing her under him. His guttural cries and the trembling of his body was enough to push her over the edge, making her tighten her arms and legs around him as her body clenched and convulsed in pleasure. His hips and his fingers stilled and they both panted to catch their breath.

Abby grinned and stroked his sweaty hair. His weight on her was comforting, familiar—as much as she'd always hated it before when lovers would collapse on top of her, trapping her under their dead weight, she kind of liked it when Connor did it, liked knowing he was so thoroughly spent on her.

When he caught his breath, he hummed softly and kissed between her breasts.

"I love you," he murmured against her sweaty skin.

"Love you too," she sighed. She ran her fingers through his hair and grazed his scalp with her fingernails. It made goosebumps come up up all over him and he shivered deliciously. "You drive me crackers sometimes—"

"Sounds like a short ride to me," he teased.

She gave his hair a sharp pull and he yipped in surprise. "You make me crazy sometimes, but I love you."

He pulled himself up so he could be face-to-face with her, their noses touching.

"What about _him?"_ He asked softly.

She hesitated. Wanting a threesome was different than wanting a consistent three-way relationship, wasn't it? Just because Connor wanted to jump Eye Patch's bones, hot though it was, didn't mean it was anything but physical. He wasn't upset that she'd had a few good snogs with him, but love was all together different.

"Honestly, Abby. Really. I won't be cross, I promise."

"What about you?" She asked evasively.

He shrugged a little and kissed the tip of her nose. "All right, I'll go first. I think he's hot, and I'd fuck him. I'm a lot turned on and a little intrigued, and, well, I _could_ feel… _something…_ for him.

His candidness and frank honesty was a little surprising. From everything she knew—or at least _thought_ she knew—about Connor suggested he wouldn't be the type to be _broadly_ entertained by the notion of threesomes or polyandry. Everything she thought about him pointed to him being very shy, reserved. That was how she'd always known him. It took him months to be comfortable being forward in their relationship. Who knew he had this in him?

But then, perhaps he was afraid—one thing she knew for _certain_ about Connor was that he hated rejection and was _terrified_ of what the people important to him thought of him. It wasn't a stretch to think he'd harboured these kinds of fantasies for many years but was too afraid of what people would think of him if they knew—what _she'd_ think of him if she knew. Maybe he'd been bitten before in the past for it. That wasn't a stretch, either. This whole situation had opened up a whole part of him that he'd forced into dormancy out of fear. Knowing she'd accept it—actually _liked_ it—let it out.

"Love?" She asked.

"Maybe."

"I could love him, too," she admitted.

He kissed her, slow and sweet like treacle. "So what're we gonna do about this?"

She giggled. "Right now? Nothing." She rolled her hips into his; he was getting hard again. Good. She turned him over while he was off-guard and straddled him. "I don't think I'm done with you yet."

o…o

She must have been just hovering between sleep and wakefulness when she heard it—so quiet it wouldn't have been noticed during the day and wouldn't have woken her up were she properly asleep.

_Click!_

The sound of the front door closing quietly.

Abby sat straight upright in bed, suddenly _wide_ awake and alert. Her first instinct was to check the other side of the bed to make sure Connor was still there; he was, dead asleep and hugging the pillow to his chest underneath him and muttering something under his breath. So that was one answer. Who'd closed the door? Was it someone going _out_ or coming _in?_ Was it Eye Patch, or someone else? If it _was_ him, what was he _doing?_ If it was an intruder, Eva would have gone _ballistic_ and alerted them to danger before ripping the person's throat out…

On alert, she crept out of bed and into her old pajama shorts and a vest, preparing to go investigate. A light was on the dimmer in the kitchen and she heard a familiar voice talking to itself. Eva's wagging tail was visible from the doorway.

"Connor?" She whispered.

"Gyuh!" Eye Patch yelped and gasped at the same time, turning to look around the open refrigerator with a start.

"Sorry!" She apologized quickly. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"S'okay," he said back in a low tone. He bit into the apple he'd taken without breaking eye-contact with her. His good eye travelled up and down her body slowly, lingering on her legs and her nearly-translucent vest and the spot on her neck where her Connor had left two very clear love-bites. His gaze _smouldered,_ the lust written clearly in his face. He wasn't even bothering to hide it anymore.

"What are you doing up?" She craned her head to look at the clock over the stove. "It's one in the morning."

He nodded towards his dog. "Ol' bitch had to pee. I figured you wouldn't want her doing it in the loft."

Eva yawned hugely and Abby suspected he was lying, or at least being somewhat dishonest.

She leaned casually back on the kitchen island, watching him in the dim light. When he came out of the fridge and closed the door, she caught full view of the very pronounced bulge in his wrinkled and slept-in jeans. A kickstand like _that_ would definitely be difficult to sleep on, she imagined.

Again she realized how lonely he was, and how difficult it must have been for him to be in the same flat with herself and Connor, knowing how much he wanted them—wanted _both_ of them—and craved affection. Every time she'd touched him she felt how he leaned into it, poured himself into her hands. Now that he wasn't fighting for his life every day, he probably had time to sit back and really realize just how long it had been since he'd been loved. First his Abby, and then his Stephen—and now he was probably listening in whenever she and her Connor went at it.

Hence the 'kickstand' problem.

Then it occurred to her that she was staring at his crotch and licking her lips.

"You were listening to us, weren't you?" She asked point-blank.

He turned bright red and turned away, suddenly fascinated by his half-eaten apple—such a Connor-ish reaction. He bit a hunk off of the fruit and took it out of his mouth to offer to Eva.

She took a cautious step forward. "You wanted to jump in with us, too."

Again, no answer.

She flattened one hand on his chest and closed the distance between them, hovering her lips just a scant inch from his; he held his breath and dropped the apple on the floor, where Eva grabbed it and dashed out of the kitchen to enjoy her prize in peace.

"What are you doing?" He breathed, scarcely audible. "Abby?"

"I'd think it was pretty obvious," she purred back. She cupped his straining erection through his jeans and delighted when he made a high-pitched gurgling noise that was all Connor and no hardass. She pressed harder, and he moaned, a rush of air against her lips, and rubbed against her hand.

"Abby—_Abby,"_ he groaned in a husky voice that made her heart skip a beat and then start going double-time.

She was wondering whether or not she should kiss him when he answered the question for her, crashing his mouth down on hers and kissing her fiercely and hungrily. He grasped her shoulders and then her waist and then her hips and then back again, as if he couldn't decide—or remember—where to hold her when they did this. She melted from the inside out, her knees inadvertently buckling as he traced her lower lip with his tongue, begging for entrance. She parted her lips and deepened the kiss, and Eye Patch crushed her to him. He was kissing her like she was air to a drowning man.

Good god the man could kiss.

He whined a needy little whine when she took her mouth from his so she could take a breath.

"No," he whined. "More."

She was glad to oblige. With a smirk, she kissed him again. It was just as intense and heated and impassioned; she got as close as humanly possible to him, then tried to get closer before she realized there was no more space left to do away with. This time she whined, wanting _more._

When she went to pull open his jeans, he tried to pull away from her but bumped into an open drawer, accidentally slamming it closed with a crash, like that had just _jolted_ him into reality.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

He squeezed his eye shut and took a deep breath. "We can't," he said in a strained voice, as though saying it was painful.

"Why not?" She ran her tongue up the side of his throat, from his collarbone up to his ear, before nibbling on his earlobe.

"Stop," he said. "That drives me mad."

"I know it does."

"The kid—" he began, meaning her Connor.

"Would think this was _sexy_ if he saw it," she said flatly.

"I don't kn—"

"I saw you kissing him," she told him. "And _I_ thought it was hot. The only thing stopping us from all having a threesome right now is that Conn's in bed and frankly you could land a helicopter in there and he wouldn't wake up."

Eye Patch laughed a little. "I can't do that anymore," he admitted a little ruefully. "Gotta keep alert, even in my sleep."

She lipped his jaw and kissed him softly. "Now's not the time to think about that. You're safe here."

Again she reached for the buttons on his jeans, and again he drew back.

"You can't—"

"_Why?"_ She asked again.

His face went red from the strain of trying to come up with an answer using what little blood he had left.

"You don't have an answer for that." She looped her free arm around his neck and turned her head to rest her cheek on his chest. His heart was beating fast, a steady and excited _thud-bum-bump!_ in her ear. She cupped his erection again and rubbed him slowly and firmly. "You were listening to us, you got turned on. You have a_ problem._ I can take care of it for you."

His eye was closed and his head was down.

"You drive a hard bargain, Abby," he sighed.

"More?" She offered.

No answer.

"Tell me no," she said firmly and seriously. "Look me in the eye, tell me to stop, and _mean it,_ and I'll back off right now."

He trembled. He had sweat on his forehead. She flattened her tongue and licked his throat, tasting sweat and feeling the scratch of unshaved whiskers. He tasted good and she wanted to taste him everywhere.

"More?" He begged.

_Finally!_ she thought, relieved. She was afraid that this tougher Connor's resolve would be too hard to crack.

She flicked the button with her thumb and slid the zip down. He wasn't wearing any underwear and when the jeans sagged around his hips, his cock sprang free. Already he was fully hard, no doubt from his own dirty threesome fantasies and her forwardness, as well as from listening to her earlier activities with Connor—the walls were really ridiculously thin in this flat—so there was no work for her to do; she closed her fingers around him and pumped her fist slowly up and down his shaft. He was gripping the edge of the counter behind him as hard as he possibly could.

Abby laved her tongue across his collarbone and started moving down. She licked wetly into the hollow at the base of his throat and blew cool air over it, making him go all goosebump-y. She kissed a line down to his chest, pausing to place gentle little butterfly kisses on the old scars. She bit down on one nipple and tugged it with her teeth, making him jump and struggle to keep quiet.

"Yes," he rasped. "Yes, yes…"

Lower and lower still she went, quick enough to keep him excited but slow enough to torment him. Just a little bit. She paused to bite at his hip and mark him with a love bite just below his navel before she dropped fully to her knees. A bead of precum was already oozing from the head of his penis and she licked it off with a quick flick of her tongue. She circled her tongue over the sensitive head once, twice, and then took him slowly into her mouth. Over her, Connor gasped and held his breath.

It really _had_ been a long time for him, she thought. He was so aroused he was leaking semen onto her tongue and she'd barely even started yet. She knew what to do to make him come—this Connor and her Connor weren't _too_ different—and had him moaning and gasping very quickly. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling a little as he thrust into her mouth, before he let go quickly and instead settled his hand on the back of her head. He didn't want to hurt her.

She pulled back and let him nearly drop from her lips; he whimpered and jerked his hips. She dragged her tongue along the underside before closing her mouth around him again.

His moans and little gasps and murmurs of wordless pleasure were music to her ears. She flattened one hand on his belly to hold him still and cupped his balls with the other.

Her only thought was _fucking hell, this was hot!_ She'd done this before with her Connor, many times, but it was sexier and somehow the littlest bit forbidden—only it wasn't _really_ forbidden, because her Connor would have enjoyed it quite thoroughly. In fact, the only thing that could have made it hotter was if he was there watching them. The thought of him there, watching and bringing himself off while she was there on her knees sucking off Eye Patch and…

She groaned as she felt herself get excited and wet. She squirmed in place, shifting her hips so the seam of her shorts rubbed against her slit and brought a tiny measure of relief.

When she added the barest hint of teeth from the tip of him all the way back to the base until she could nearly rub her nose in the thatch of dark, coarse hair, he howled and that was it for him. He groaned her name and gave one last hard thrust and came hot and hard into her mouth. She licked and suckled and swallowed his release—he tasted the same, but then he _would,_ wouldn't he?

That was an odd thing to think. What the hell was she, a connoisseur?

Eye Patch Connor's chest was heaving and sweaty through his half-unzipped hooded sweatshirt; his head was lolled back and she saw his throat work as he swallowed again and again, trying to recover his power of speech.

"Oh, wow," he rasped. "You—that's—I'm—_wow."_

She giggled, pressing a kiss to his hip and under his navel. She'd reduced her own Connor to incoherency more than once and doing it to _this_ one was just as hot and exciting and made her just as wet. By now she was damp all the way down to her thighs and her body _begged_ for release, but right now her priority was Eye Patch in front of her. His cheeks were wet and she was pretty sure it wasn't only sweat.

"Hey," she got his attention with the word and a hand on his damp cheek. "You all right?"

He nodded. "Just—_intense._ Been a while."

"That's not only it, is it?"

After a pause, he opened his eye and locked it with hers. "Wasn't talking about only the sex, Abby," he said. "Great as that was. It's just been a long time since I've been this close to, well, _anyone._ And, well… you know." He blushed and wiped his sweaty brow with his sleeve. "I'm no good with words, you know that."

"I know," she whispered. "Try shutting up." She stood taller and kissed him, a sweet and slow kiss that he savoured.

"Shutting up works," he said when they parted.

They were flush against each other and he reached around to grab her ass. Then his hand moved between her legs from behind, feeling her wetness through her pajama shorts, and smirked against her lips.

She expected him to say something about it—something filthy—but he seemed to be taking her 'shut up' advice to heart. Instead he buttoned his jeans back up and picked her up over his shoulder and plonked her down _hard_ on the counter top.

"Ow!" She yelped. "Conn—"

Then she forgot how to talk when he hooked his hands into her waistband and roughly dragged the shorts away. He threw them blindly and they landed on top of the refrigerator. She didn't care about that. She didn't particularly care that she was sitting bare-assed and messily aroused on their cold kitchen counters in the middle of the night. All she cared about was his mouth closing on her. He didn't waste time trying to tease her like she expected he would—he just went straight for the ultimate goal. His exploration was determined, and maybe a little clumsy, calling into play knowledge he hadn't used in years.

He licked the wet from her thighs and her lips, and his tongue lashed at her clit, making her cry out softly. He suckled and dipped his tongue inside her, eagerly licking up Connor's cum from earlier. He practically purred when he tasted the combination, and Abby gave a low moan, getting further aroused by the fact that he was enjoying this so thoroughly.

He wrapped his arms around her hips and clasped his hands at her back, holding her hard against his mouth as he devoured her. She dug her fingers into his hair and raked his scalp with her nails. Rusty he might have been, but he still knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

It didn't take long before she came under his mouth, her body convulsing and shuddering and her eyes clenching shut and her head lolling back. She scored his neck with her nails and cried out wordlessly, forgetting that it was the middle of the night and the other Connor and their animals were all trying to sleep.

The strokes of his tongue became slow and long and soothing, bringing her floating back down to earth, her body still humming in quiet pleasure. He straightened to stand upright and stood before her with his hands still resting on her hips; he nuzzled her neck, her cheek, her hair until her breathing evened out. Then he leaned forward and crushed his mouth to hers in a kiss that sent her reeling. She felt all giddy and boneless and sighed, letting him hold her up.

He kissed her quick and fiery, on her lips and her cheeks, her forehead, along her jaw, the soft spot under her ear, and she kissed him back wherever she could reach. He murmured softly and incoherently between kisses, like he couldn't decide what he wanted to say or if he should even say it at all.

She slid off the counter and peeled off her now-sweaty vest and tossed it off into the hall—she didn't really care about being naked in front of their foundling, and certainly had no qualms being however undressed she liked in her own flat. Eye Patch stared at her, slightly slack-jawed in awe. She was about to ask what he was staring at when a little voice inside her interrupted. _You, _it said. He was staring at _her._ As much as they'd flirted and fooled around, he hadn't seen her naked yet. Her smile quirked and twitched and she braced her arms in the kitchen doorway. He stared for several long moments, practically drooling, before he broke the silence.

"Maybe—maybe you should've left your clothes on," he rasped.

"Why? The ones I was wearing you ruined by turning me on and getting me off."

He groaned. "You're making me crazy."

"I know—that was the idea."

"You shouldn't be, yeah? You've got a boyfriend."

"Who, it's worth pointing out, would take a running leap and swan-dive into your pants if given the chance."

He was thinking about that—_really _thinking about it, she could tell, with his nose scrunched up and his gaze unfocused somewhere vague. "So what do we do about… _this?"_ He asked hesitantly, unsure of the words and unsure of the question itself.

Abby rolled her shoulders in a half-shrug and kissed him again. "Dunno. We'll work something out, all three of us. We should just maybe try and get some sleep first."

He nodded slowly. "I guess that's as good a plan as any."

She jerked her head towards her bedroom door. "You comin'?" She asked lightly.

Connor's good eye went huge and wide and his eyebrows climbed his forehead. Then he gave her a glare, but he was smiling. "Very funny, Abby," he snorted. He gave her one last little peck on her forehead before turning to go up to the loft. "Goodnight."

What he didn't know was that she wasn't joking.


	7. Chapter Six

This chapter was a bit funny writing—sometimes it was really easy at some points and _totally bloody fucking impossible_ at others. I sort of copped out and did a fade-to-grey (slightly less than a fade-to-black) for parts. Totally a cop-out but I didn't know how long it was going to be before I could get more detail! Anyway, enjoy!

o…o

Lester sent Connor home. Actually sent him home, declaring him a danger to himself, the Arc, and possibly all of the United Kingdom after he spent the day absentmindedly doing increasingly stupid things. The final straw was when he punched the wrong code in one of the high-security areas, causing thirty armed guards to drop from the ceiling panels and all aim their laser-sights in kill-shots at his forehead. It was the result of having his head in the clouds, imagining Abby and Eye Patch or himself and Eye Patch or all three of them together—she'd told him what'd happened in the kitchen, and Connor was sorely disappointed he'd missed it—and having approximately none of his mind on his work.

"You're extremely lucky more than half the technology in this building is _your_ invention, Temple! We can't fire you because then we'd have no idea how anything works and we don't have the time or resources necessary to replace everything you've pulled out of your arse!"

Lester berated him in his office, turning redder and redder the more he yelled, while Connor recoiled in his chair like a dog afraid of getting hit with a newspaper. He even worried he might actually pee out of fear. Lester was an oily little weasel of a man, and neither large nor inherently threatening, but when he got to railing he could scare anyone. The only person who was never intimidated by Lester was Cutter.

"How do you explain yourself?" The man demanded.

"Well, I—"

"I don't have to listen to your inane and pointless explanations! Go home. Sort out whatever the hell you need to sort out. When you come back on Monday I hope I don't have to see you or hear you or hear anyone _else_ talking about you, is that understood?"

It was then that Abby wandered into the office, dressed head-to-toe in her protective suit from being in with some new plants. The garment had all the interesting sexy contours of a dustbin liner and he _still_ thought she was _fucking hot._

"What's going on here?" She asked, pulling her goggles off and sliding the hood down.

"Your girlfriend has nearly caused several near-misses for another British civil war. I'm sending him home."

"Conn?" She asked, worried.

"Had m'head in the clouds," he said sheepishly as she stared him down, one eyebrow raised in suspicion and the ghost of a smile on her lips. "No big deal, Abby. Nothing's wrong."

"You cost us several _thousand_ pounds in damages when those soldiers came out of the ceiling!"

"I didn't _ask_ them to be so enthusiastic!"

"You're not helping your case, Temple. I don't want to see you around here until Monday."

"You're being sent home?" Abby asked.

"Yeah."

"Can I give him a lift?" She asked Lester.

"Absolutely not. We need all the lucid people here we can get."

"It'll only take a few minutes—"

"No."

"How's he gonna get home?"

Lester took a deep breath. "He's got two working legs and exact change for the bus, hasn't he?"

And that was the end of that. Even Abby wouldn't argue with Lester, so he was sent home on his own. She _did_ pull him aside and offer him the keys to her car so he could drive himself home—it was starting to rain and it was cold outside—but he waved her off.

By the time he got home, it was raining so hard he could barely see and his clothes were drenched through. He wanted a hot shower and a hot cup of tea and a dry change of clothes. And then he wanted to go and beat the ever-loving shit out of that 'James Lester' character he'd secretly made in 'Soul Calibur'. Maybe snog Eye Patch in the corner for the rest of the day.

He got a dog-snout in the crotch the second he walked in the door.

"_Hurgh!_ Down, Eva!" Connor had never had a dog before—his mother wouldn't let him, wouldn't have anything in her house that couldn't flush a toilet—so all of these doggie-behaviours were new to him. And annoying.

The bathroom door opened and a plume of steam billowed out, followed by Eye Patch, without his eye patch, wrapped in a towel with his hair wet and dripping.

The dog was swiftly forgotten, as was the rain and the cold and the fact that he'd just been booted off the island at work until Monday.

"You're home early," the other Connor observed redundantly. "What'd you do this time?"

The accusation made Connor narrow his eyes and cross his arms defensively. "Come _on,_ what _is it_ with you and Abby? Why is it when something goes wrong that everyone automatically leaps to the conclusion that it's _my fault?"_

"I know you," he said flatly. "Don't sulk. Abby always said I looked like a hedgehog when I sulked and frankly I'm inclined to agree with her."

"There enough hot water left for me to take a shower?"

"Dunno. If it's cold I could always warm it up for you."

He stumbled over thin air at the suggestion and gurgled a little when Eye Patch gave him a sexy little smirk. _Hot!_

With his counterpart's gaze still glued to him, Connor felt awkward and clumsy like a teenager. He tripped over Nancy and nearly trod on Sid and fell over the back of the sofa. The other Connor reached up to reflexively adjust the eye patch he wasn't wearing and looked suddenly shocked and embarrassed that he was without it—more bashful to be without his eye patch than to be seen in little more than a tea towel.

"Crap!" He covered his eye with a hand dashed back into the bathroom, leaving the towel fluttering to the ground behind him like a cartoon.

"What?"

"My patch!"

Connor shucked his clothes off one layer at a time, leaving them in soggy heaps on the floor, as he made his way over to the bathroom door. He leaned in the doorway in an undershirt and unbuttoned jeans, watching him fuss in the mirror, naked but for his eye patch. It took a minute to realize e was bening watched through the mirror, the tension palpable and neither of them making a move for the other.

That was a particularly sexy come-hither gaze, he thought, his head going all foggy the longer their eyes locked.

It should have been weird. It should have felt wrong. It was some weird kind of auto-eroticism or incest or 'twincest' or at the very least cheating on Abby. They were screwing around with alternate realities—Eye Patch had no business being here, in this world, with them, safe and alive and happy and rescued from his Armageddon world. They both knew science fiction and every conceivable time-travel scenario well enough to know that they could cause some serious problems this way.

But his body acted of its own accord, out of his control, as he watched a single bead of water slide from his hair and roll over his scarred shoulders and down the slightly-bony dip in his spine. He came up behind him, planting a hand on his hip and pulling his other arm around his shoulders, kissing and gently biting his neck while the other Connor gripped the edge of the sink until his knuckles ran white. They fitted snug together, back to chest.

Connor glanced up at the mirror, lips still between his neck and shoulder, and was mildly shocked to see their near-identical reflections staring back. Nearly identical, but so different—the scars, the hard lines from living a difficult life, the eye patch. He gave a little grunt in surprise and pressed a slow kiss to his counterpart's neck, scrutinizing the reaction in the mirror. Eye Patch's good eye slipped closed and he tilted his head to the side to bare more of his neck; a soft little whimper escaped him, and Connor decided it was one of the hottest things he'd ever seen or heard before in his life.

Eye Patch turned quickly, suddenly, and pushed him back against the wall opposite, pressing into him and kissing him all hard and needy. The towel rack dug into his back—he ignored it. He eased his hands into his jeans and Connor groaned.

He hadn't realized he'd said something until Eye Patch pulled away with one little peck and a confused frown.

"Pardon?" He asked.

"Do me a favour," he repeated.

"Hum?"

"Take off that stupid eye patch first."

A smirk—dimple and all—and then a laugh and the other Connor slowly and tentatively slipped the patch away. Despite his willingness to comply with the request, he turned away to keep the scar hidden, suddenly self-conscious. His good eye clenched shut.

"Hey," he murmured. When he turned, Connor kissed his temple where the scar started. "It's okay."

He kissed him again properly, slow and sweet.

"It's okay," he repeated.

o…o

His mind woke up before his body did, which was a funny feeling. His limbs were slow to respond and his head was a little fuzzy still. He was still tingling, giddy, riding the high from Eye Patch Connor going down on him in the bathroom and then again when they stumbled into his and Abby's bedroom.

It was totally different, Connor decided, to be on the _giving_ end of a blowjob. As well as Abby seemed to know what he liked and how to make him squirm, there was a difference between knowing what he liked himself and applying the technique to someone else. He was slow and unsure of himself—it was a totally alien experience for him—but Eye Patch was reassuring and gentle and encouraging, like Abby had been in the beginning with him.

It was weird.

Except that it wasn't.

Too goddamn hot to be weird.

Wrung and spent and woozy, they fell asleep wrapped around each other and tangled in the sweaty sheets. Abby was probably going to be cross with them for staining her sheets, but maybe they could distract her so neither of them would get hit for it.

The other Connor was surprisingly—or perhaps, he thought, rather _unsurprisingly—_clingy in his sleep. He was spooned up at his back, arms around his hips, breathing into his neck. Totally unwilling to let go of him.

Connor did his best to roll over onto his back and stretch. His back cracked like someone was crushing a box of Styrofoam packing peanuts, so embarrassingly loudly that his lover stirred and jerked awake. He opened his good eye, bleary and bloodshot.

"What the hell was that?"

"Uh—my back?"

He snorted and snuggled back into his chest. "You're outta shape, mate," he purred. "We weren't even being all that acrobatic."

The smart reply in his head didn't make it to his lips. Eye Patch's hand flattened on his abdomen and slide down below the sheets. His breath escaped in a slow hiss and his hips jerked involuntarily. His cock twitched and began to grow hard again. He snickered softly and bit down on his neck before trailing his tongue over his collarbone and down his chest, his stomach, and his head disappeared under the blanket.

His hand was replaced with his mouth and Connor groaned.

Neither of them noticed the door opening or the footsteps and remained oblivious to the new arrival, even after Abby turned up at the door.

She had a sneaking suspicion she knew what was going on when she saw the light still on in the bathroom, the discarded towel, and Connor's clothes in piles from the living area to the bedroom door. Sid and Nancy were burrowed under the pillow in their basket to hide from the sex-noises they hated so much; Rex was nowhere to be found; Eva was on the couch with a tennis ball, looking forlorn and unloved.

Then she heard two voices murmuring and the bedsprings creaking slightly, followed by a familiar moan.

She got to the door in time to see one dark head disappear under the sheets, only the very top of his head visible; her Connor arched and moaned deliciously and it didn't require much mental acuteness to figure out what was going on. At first, she felt a little disappointed at having been left out of the day's _activities—_for all she knew, Connor screwed up on purpose just to get sent home and have their guest to himself—but that only lasted a few seconds. Then the sheet slipped, and she could see the other Connor between his thighs, sliding his mouth up and down his hard shaft in time with the rocking of his hips.

Connor groaned loudly and arched up off the bed, reaching back to grab the headboard with one hand and grabbing a fistful of Eye Patch's hair with the other; he groaned, too, the sound muffled from his full mouth and then drowned out completely with another moan.

She watched the show for several minutes—her intent was to come into the room and jokingly scold them for fucking in her bed without at least phoning to invite her first, but the English language proved extremely evasive as she watched one Connor suck off the other. Her Connor's moans grew louder, the muscles standing out in his neck and chest; Eye Patch sat back slightly, skimming over the delicate skin of his cock with his teeth before sitting back and using his hand and locking eyes with Connor. He bucked his hips and whimpered at the slow movements. He tried to guide his head back down with the hand n his hair but he wouldn't be moved.

"Don't stop," he begged. His face was red. The sound of his voice, pleading and helpless, was one _hell_ of a turn-on.

She squirmed a little in place and realized she was _far_ more aroused than she'd thought. When she was in high school, a friend of hers had a thing for what she called 'slash fiction', which Abby had read once or twice and never understood the appeal of. Until now. Maybe it was knowing that, at any minute, she could jump in there and be quite welcome—fictional guys had nothing on _two_ Connor Temples.

Or threesomes.

She leaned back on the doorframe and reached up her skirt into her sodden panties and rolled her clit between her fingers. She went slow, not intent on release but on drawing out her pleasure as she watched the pair of them on the bed. She rocked her pelvis gently, mimicking Connor's hips and Eye Patch's mouth as she sank back against one side of the doorframe and braced a foot against the other side to keep from falling down.

Connor's cries got louder, the thrust of his hips harder, his breathing more erratic. Abby knew that pattern well enough—he wasn't going to last long now. Her fingers sped up and pressed harder and her body convulsed in a wave of pleasure as she orgasmed at the same as he did. She kept her eyes glued to the pair of them, watching the slow and lazy roll of Connor's hips while Eye Patch swallowed his cum with an expression that might best have been described as 'greedy'.

He pushed himself up on his elbows and gave one slow lick over the head with the flat of his tongue, keeping his gaze on Connor until he opened his eyes and stared back. He looked loopy and sated and his eyes were glazed. Still keeping eye-contact, Eye Patch kissed the slight bump of his hipbone and trailed damp open-mouthed kisses up his body. He only got halfway up when Abby shifted in the doorframe, which drew their attention to her, skirt hiked up in the front and knickers halfway down her thighs. A week ago this would have been _really_ embarrassing. Now it was just hot.

Eye Patch sat up and smirked sexily at her, licking his lips. She sighed and gave an involuntary little moan.

"Hi Abby," he said casually, like she'd just walked in the front door and they were on the sofa watching a movie. His eyes travelled down to where her fingers were still deep in her sex, moving a little in and out and against her clit—she needed to come again, needed release, hadn't even taken the edge off before. "I take it you enjoyed the show?"

There was no smart remark she could make to that so she answered truthfully, "Yeah…" in a soft sigh.

Connor smiled softly, his face a little pink, though she was pretty sure it wasn't totally because he was embarrassed; the other one gave her a deviously promising smirk that made her knees buckle.

The three of them were silent, having a staring match. The offer was unmade, the question was unasked, palpable and hanging heavy in the air between them. Her analytical mind—always so quick to come up with the worst possible outcome to every situation—took this rather inconvenient moment to rapidly weigh the pros and cons of this.

Two Connors, hard and waiting and _willing,_ was too hard to resist.

"There room for me?" She asked hoarsely.

Her Connor grinned and moved over, patting the space next to him. "Always, love."

She was out of her clothes and into the bed in record time.

Eye Patch kissed her first, pulling her hips flush against his, nails digging in hard, biting, and leaving little crescent-shaped marks in the soft skin of her waist. By now she knew he was quite good at kissing her, knew the similarities and differences between him and the other Connor; he tasted like Connor, familiar and bitter-salty on her tongue. She deepened the kiss and moaned and shuddered against her. She rose to her knees and pushed against him, hands on his chest. He slid his hands over her hips and around to her ass, hips tight against hers and his erection pressing into her.

It was weird, thinking about what to do next—threesomes were not an area in which she could claim experience. Fantasizing was one thing; the execution was proving to be difficult. Were they all supposed to go at it together, or take turns with each other while the third watched, or something else?

Then she saw Eye Patch looking lusty and hungry for this—for _her—_and that was it. Screw thinking, she decided.

She tore away from him and gave him a hard shove backwards with both hands, taking him off-guard and pushing him into the blankets and pillows. She straddled him and lowered herself just a little bit, enough that his head rubbed against her wet core, doubling them both with moans. He gripped and tried to pull her down, but he underestimated her strength and she wouldn't budge.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Connor watching them hungrily, excitedly, while slowly stroking his dick back to full hardness. There was one thing she hoped the two of them had in common: absurdly quick recovery time. He looked a little disappointed that they'd stopped and then noticed they were staring at him.

"What?" He asked. "If you're waiting for permission or something, or fuck's sake _yes!"_

Eye Patch laughed, the sound rough and grating like it was rusty—his laugh always sounded like that, like he was out of practice—and when Abby sank down and took him in one quick movement, the sound turned into a soft cry.

Like when he went down on her in the kitchen last night, his movements were jerky and rough and he seemed out of practice and unsure of himself, his fingers digging into her hips as he let her take the lead.

As she leaned forward and kissed Eye Patch, swallowing his groans and purring happily as he steadily got into the rhythm, she heard Connor next to them moaning. His eyes were wide, his pupils blown, sweat beading on is brow and down his neck; his hand was around his cock, jerking himself off as he watched them. This only heightened the pleasure, knowing that they were being watched and thoroughly turning him on.

Then he was gone, his weight off the bed for a second before he was back again, trying to get a hand between their chests. Her lust-addled mind tried to process what he was doing but she was having a hard time with it. He pushed a little harder and the two of them parted slightly, letting him get his hand between them.

"What?" Eye Patch grunted. "What are you…?"

Connor flattened his hand between Abby's breasts and pushed her back. "Sit back, Abby," he said.

"Huh?"

"Sit back," he repeated.

Her lover rolled his hips hard into hers, making her arch and grind into him. Connor's hand pushed her up and this time she sat back like he said, bracing herself with her hands on the other Connor's thighs behind her. He stilled, waiting to see what his counterpart was planning.

He leaned down and kissed Eye Patch, his hand moved from her chest to his groin, fingers fluttering and touching them both.

Abby ran her fingers through Connor's hair but stayed leaning back, waiting. She was just starting to get antsy from the lack of movement when he shifted again and it suddenly became _very_ clear why he wanted her to sit back.

He slid down, and the next thing she felt was his mouth.

She yelped, leaning back further and pushing against his mouth and driving against the other Connor's cock. He lapped at both of them, drawing forth doubled moans and gasps and making them both shudder with pleasure.

Never in her life had she experienced an orgasm so intense—it built like a brushfire in her core and burned hard and fast and burst deep within her. Her gasp was ragged and her cry hoarse and her whole body convulsed, her walls clamping and her ears rushing.

She was still arched backwards, staring at the ceiling, when her head cleared. Connor was laying next to Eye Patch, nuzzling his shoulder but keeping his eyes on her; one arm was looped around her lower back, pulling her down with the gentle rocking of his hips.

"All right, Abbs?" Eye Patch rasped.

She nodded.

"Okay to go on?" That was her Connor. "Or d'you wanna stop?"

"Hell no!" She panted. "Just need—a minute."

She tried to catch her breath; under her, the two Connors were kissing again. _Really_ kissing. Making out like horny teenagers, quick and frantic, tongues and teeth and lips clashing—it excited her all over again. She rocked gently on her knees, watching and waiting, leaning limp on the hands at her back, one of each of theirs holding her up and keeping her from flopping backwards onto the bed.

A silent exchange between them—eyes widening and smirks twitching and betraying nothing—and Connor's weight was gone from the bed briefly, replaced behind her. She didn't have time to register her mild confusion, certainly not voice it, before she felt him up behind her, gently nudging her forward.

He rose to his knees behind her and slid his hands down her back and over the curve of her backside; the other Connor sat up, trailed the tip of his tongue up over the swell of her breast and up to her neck, sucking hard on the skin and leaving a hickey on the side of her neck. She whimpered, unable to form words. He came further forward and caught Connor's lips, kissing him over her shoulder. She heard them breathing hard in her ear.

She felt one of Connor's hands move again, down to the cleft of her buttocks. His fingers were wet, slick—lubricant. Had they been snooping in her drawers and found her things?

She'd done _this_ before, a few times—one of her boyfriends at university was _deeply_ closeted, but _smoking_ hot, and couldn't stomach sex with a woman any other way—though it'd been many years since then. She groaned, her body resisting his fingers at first before she made herself relax. Where Connor had learned to do this, she didn't know. But then, he'd surprised her with his sexual knowledge and skills since they'd finally gotten together. He was a smart bloke, and not nearly as hopelessly naïve as he seemed.

She slumped forward onto Eye Patch's chest; he held her still for Connor, holding her down and kissing her and biting between her neck and shoulder. He cupped her breast and pinched the nipple, startling a cry from her lips.

All her senses were dulled but for touch, which was hyperaware and almost painfully intense and setting her nerve endings afire.

Behind her, Connor went still and rested his forehead on her back between her shoulder blades. He was trembling, overwhelmed; Eye Patch was tensed, too, but reached behind her to stroke his hip.

"When you're ready," he rasped.

They waited, all three of them, until Abby thought she was going to scream for them to start already; she rocked her hips and waited, waited.

Their movements together were at first uncoordinated and jerky and halting, making them all moan and buck against each other. She heard them both babbling incoherently, speech slurred, talking—always, always talking, both of them, all the time—but her mouth and throat were dry and she couldn't talk. She could hardly make any sound at all, couldn't do more than keen with their thrusts.

She was already spent and limp, barely holding herself upright, by the time the two Connors shuddered their way to their final release. Connor behind her gave one last hard thrust and buried himself in her to the hilt. He bit down on her neck and she felt him cry out wordlessly, his teeth digging hard into her flesh and stinging deliciously. He wobbled and then fell against her back, knocking her off-balance and sending her into a clumsy, sweaty heap on Eye Patch's chest. He groaned, his hips still struggling to move under their combined weight. His back arched with his orgasm, raising up off the bed with both of them still on top of him.

Connor withdrew and rolled onto his side, letting Abby up after him. She rolled off of Eye Patch and onto his other side. They were silent but for their heavy breathing as they caught their breath, blindly kissing each other on whatever bare skin they could get to.

Abby's whole body was tingling with pleasure. Her thoughts were slow and syrupy-sweet and she knew she had a very silly smile on her face. She tried to think of something—anything—else to say but she couldn't make her brain work properly, nor could she have made her voice work if she had. Neither of her Connors could either.

Before they could recover their collective power of speech, she drifted off to sleep.


	8. Chapter Seven

After the last chapter, the rest of the story basically wrote itself, which was a relief after how tough that last one was! This one is really short, but the epilogue has more to it so I hope that makes up for it! I was going to put a bit of shower!porn in this one, but decided not to. It's implied, but the details are left to your imagination. (Also, the 'anvil shark' really did exist. It's one of the stupidest looking fish I've ever seen in my life!)

o…o

They woke up off and on during the night—sometimes two of them, sometimes all three—but didn't have enough energy to put in a full repeat performance. Instead they passed the waking time with gentle touches, little kisses, and soft whispers of affection. They also shoved each other to try and make room in the double bed, finding the space _crowded_ with three people in it. Both Connors were pushed to the edge of the bed and nearly _out_ of it more than once during the night, but Abby cleverly kept to the middle and refused to be pushed, stubbornly determined to _not_ end up on the floor.

She was on her stomach when she woke up, an arm around one Connor and a leg around the other. This early in the morning, telling them apart _was_ rocket science. Eye Patch Connor was probably the one on her left, turned towards her and breathing over her face—he smelled vaguely like cigarettes, but after spending the night lip-locked with each other they probably all smelled a little like cigarettes.

Their warm weight and their soft snores and the bites and stubble burn on her flesh were all comforting. Rather soppily, she thought she could wake up like this with both of them with her for the rest of forever.

She shifted and snuggled back down with the intent of sleeping for a while longer. She became aware that Eye Patch was awake when she felt him stroke up and down her side with the tips of his fingers—it was definitely Eye Patch, because his fingers were rough and callused and scarred. Through her eyelashes she watched him follow the hand with his good eye, staring reverently at her.

She sighed happily.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "Didn't know you were awake." His hand stilled and she made a disappointed little grumble.

"Don't stop," she whinged. "Feels good." He flattened his hand and stroked her back; she all but purred.

Connor stirred next, snorting out of a dream and rubbing his eyes tiredly. He took in the sight of them both there next to him and smiled—_way_ better than _any_ dream he could have. He picked Abby's arm up from around his waist and brought it up to his mouth, kissing her palm and flicking his tongue over the sensitive inside of her wrist. She turned over and smiled at him.

"Morning," he said. "It _is_ morning this time, right?"

"Think so," Eye Patch said. He leaned over her head to peck him on the lips.

They were answered by the whining and scratching at the door—the animals were awake and demanded attention. Eva was crying—she probably needed to go outside. Abby groaned and heaved a sigh. Reptiles didn't need to go for walks.

"I'll go down on whoever takes the ol' bitch for a walk," Eye Patch offered.

Connor sat up a little, groaning as his muscles protested the movement. "You mean it?"

He nodded. "It's raining. Don't wanna walk in the rain."

Connor volunteered.

Abby sat up on her side, facing the remaining man with her head supported on one arm. "That was a dirty trick, you know," she said flatly.

"How so?"

She grabbed his thigh playfully. "All he has to do is smile all cute and dimply and you'll do anything he wants."

"And how d'you figure that?" He asked, tracing his hand up and down her abdomen and carefully skirting her breasts.

"'Cuz it works for me."

The bedroom door was left open, so they were alone for all of two minutes before Rex flew in and sat on the headboard, chittering at them, and Sid and Nancy bounded in playfully. It was Saturday and there was no work, but there were still things they had to do so eventually they got out of bed.

If sleeping three in the bed was a delicate balancing act, then trying to get three people into that little shower was a _circus_ act. Eye Patch made good on his bribe, though, on his knees in front of Connor while she watched; then he turned around and did the same for her. It was still that initial 'honeymoon' period, she rationalized, then figured she didn't _have_ to rationalize it. All of that annoying higher brain function shut down as soon as his mouth closed over her clit.

"I'm guessing you're not working until Monday," Eye Patch said casually over morning tea.

"Barring any unforeseen circumstances, like an anvil-shark in the Thames, yes."

"A _what?"_ Abby asked.

"Anvil-shark," Connor said. "Early shark. Its dorsal fin looked like an anvil."

"Right," she said. "So, no, we're not working until Monday. Why?"

"I was thinking—maybe I should talk to Lester then."

They both stopped in the middle of their teacups and stared at him, both of them thinking the same things. Had he made his decision; what _had_ he decided to do? Did he want to stay? Go back? Did he want to leave, start a new life somewhere else?

"You don't have to leave," Connor blurted out. "You can—you can stay here." He looked at Abby for support. "Right?"

She nodded. "If it's because things could be a bit weird—don't worry about it, okay? We can work it out," she said. "It takes effort, but these polyamorous relationships _can_ work." Then she looked at him with the most piteous expression she could manage and asked in a small voice, "Please don't leave."

"I'm not gonna leave," he reassured. "I can't stay here unofficial, not for the rest of my life," he pointed out. He noticed them looking worried and sighed. "Lester doesn't control the universe, you know. He might not _like_ me being here but he can't realistically do anything to stop me doing it. My world ended—there's nothing there for me or Eva, and sending me back would be a death sentence. Even he's not that cruel. Seems I'm making a new life here, and, well…" he turned pink. "I _like_ being here. And you, both of you."

Connor turned a little red himself and Abby bit her lower lip. _'I love you,'_ wasn't spoken—all of them still too gun-shy to say it.

"You'll go broke babysitting me the rest of my life anyway," the other Connor joked, trying to lighten the mood a little bit.

"We could see if we can get you a job somewhere once you're legitimate—if worse comes to worse we could probably manufacture paperwork, that's assuming Lester won't help. If nothing else, the two of us have enough computer skills to hack anything we need in order to turn you into a real person here."

"Let's not think about that, shall we?" Abby said. "Maybe you could work outside the Arc, you won't have to be around anomalies all the time—"

"No," he interrupted.

"What, no?" She asked, confused.

"Let's face it, I've been doing anomaly work for too long," he said. "I'm not good for a whole lot else. I could work with the soldiers, maybe. Train dogs. Something like that. Can you imagine _me_ doing something _normal_ like waiting tables or working in some business's IT department?"

No, they couldn't imagine him working a normal job. In all honesty, none of them could probably ever work a 'normal' job again. Too many years spent in the Anomaly Research Centre had ruined them all for the real world—it wasn't a stretch to think that Eye Patch was the same. At least working for the Arc he could apply his old Connor-ish skills and his newer ones for some practical use.

"I want to stay. If you'll have me."

"We'll have to get a bigger bed," Abby said. "Otherwise one of you is gonna end up on the floor every morning for the rest of your life."

He grinned. "So I'm staying?"

They nodded.

"Does this mean you're adopting me or something?"

"Oh, hell no," Connor said quickly. "That just makes it sound even weirder than it is. You're just shacking up with us, yeah?"


	9. Epilogue

And, the story runs to a close. Once again, I'm fooling around with timelines; this chapter takes place many months after the last one, but still references some of the happenings at the end of S.3, as well as Jack putting in an appearance here. (Actually, he's just mentioned.) I hope it ties up all the loose ends! Thanks so much to everyone who's read and offered feedback this whole time and took the threesome aspects with a grain of salt. It's perhaps not an entirely realistic ending, but I figured that after everything they've all been through, they deserve a happy ending and realism can go fuck itself.

Thanks also to iEvenstarEstel, without whom this story would never have been written.

o…o

Lester's reaction to the new Connor was best described as 'horrified', but he was resigned. Abby and Connor weren't letting their foundling go and even James Lester knew when a fight wasn't worth it. If he didn't pull the governmental strings and do what the three of them were asking, he knew they'd go somewhere else. At least he could control the situation this way. At least _this_ Connor would be with the soldiers, working with Becker instead of him.

'Drake Church'. That was the name Eye Patch picked for himself, since he could hardly keep the name Connor Temple. It was easy to work out why he picked that surname: it wasn't a stretch to get from 'Temple' to 'Church'. When Abby asked him why he'd chosen the first name 'Drake', he simply answered that it was a badass name and he'd always liked it. Connor thought that was as good a reason as any—though he _had_ tossed out several suggested names from sci-fi and comic universes and seemed disappointed he didn't want to use one of them. The others at the Arc knew him as Drake, but at home he was still Connor. Sometimes they went by 'Red One' and 'Red Two', ostensibly so they would know which one of them was in trouble if Abby was yelling at them.

The first thing they did once they got all of the paperwork done was go out for drinks at the pub. Just because they could. They practically had to _carry_ Eye Patch home with them around midnight and poured him into bed, where he stayed dead to the world until lunchtime the following day.

They _did_ get a bigger bed after all. Two more nights of sleeping crowded together and they decided it wasn't worth knocking each other out of bed in a desperate bid for more room at night. Especially with Abby's sharp elbows—if someone ended up on the floor, it was one of _them,_ and never her.

It was eight months since then. Eventually, the honeymoon period passed and they settled into comfortable domesticity together. It was all trial-and-error, between Connor's inexperience in relationships and Eye Patch's emotional scars and _none_ of them having _any_ idea how a poly-relationship was supposed to work. They figured it out one step at a time, taking the problems as they happened and thoroughly enjoying each other in between.

Eye Patch and Eva got used to working in the Arc; Becker was impressed with the man's marksmanship, considering he had no depth perception because of his blind eye. He was just relieved to be working again, doing the job he'd done and loved a lifetime ago and rediscovering that initial boyish excitement that came with finding dinosaurs in England, rather than dealing with wave after wave of Future Predators. Eva became the Arc's unofficial mascot and had free run of the place whenever she wasn't on duty. Even Lester liked her and would feed her scraps whenever he thought no one was looking.

Their foundling stopped wearing his eye patch in the flat. He put it on if he went out—it was kept on the hook in the front with their coats—but at home he didn't bother.

The two Connors were in bed, exhausted after an extremely eventful day. The herd of angry, rampaging _Embolotherium_ crashing that poor guy's stag weekend was bad enough by itself, but then that Eve character turned up and Christine Johnson and her flunkies got caught up in it…

Really, they owed their lives to 'Drake's dog. Like her master, Eva was getting used to living in a far more peaceful world and, even when she was on duty with the soldiers in her little Kevlar jacket, was fairly even-tempered around anyone she didn't perceive as a threat. But she raised her hackles and growled threateningly at Eve, tail between her legs and ears flattened on her head. This made Connor extremely suspicious; there was only one human being, he said, who scared Eva this badly. That was Helen Cutter.

It was a good guess, a lucky one, and it saved them from goodness knew what kind of danger. When the excitement died down at the end of the day, the entire team went to a pub to drown themselves in large glasses of beer and shuddered to think of the bullet they'd just dodged. To think what could have happened if they'd unwittingly let Helen Cutter into their Arc, unrestricted…

No one wanted to think of what could have happened.

"That's one damn good dog," was what Becker said. "You better let her sleep _in_ the bed after this."

They didn't let Eva sleep in the bed—Eva didn't like sharing with that many humans and preferred the bed in the loft upstairs, where she could stretch out—but they did get her a hamburger, which she appreciated.

Connor was working on the reports and the paperwork, the contents of a huge accordion folder strewn across the bed. Eye Patch was wrapped around his waist, hugging him, asleep and exhausted and still a little bit drunk.

There was the jingle and clank of keys, the front door slamming closed, and the chaotic clatter of dog and human and Rex and the _Diictodons_ all over the front room. Abby was back from Eva's night walk. The dog trotted casually into the bedroom and jumped on the foot of the bed, clearly knowing full well the humans _owed her._

Abby followed a few moments later. "Get off my bed, mutt!" She ordered, pointing at Eva and then at the floor. "There's only room for one cranky bitch in this relationship and the Connors take that in turn."

He couldn't help it—he laughed. Eva skulked out of the room and Abby shut the door before stripping down to her underwear and climbing into bed behind the two of them.

"Aren't you gonna be cold stripped down like that?" He asked without looking up.

"Nah. Sleeping with the two of you is like having a couple of fleshy hot-water bottles." She kissed Connor on the top of his shoulder and then on his cheek, reading the piles of papers before him that took up most of the bed. "He asleep?" She asked, reaching down to stroke the other Connor's hair.

"Yeah—he conked out about twenty minutes ago."

"Sounds like a good idea. I can put all the paperwork away if you don't wanna wake him up," she offered.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I just wanted to read through some of this stuff—not gonna be able to do much with it until Sarah gets that diary translated, but I still want—" he cut himself off in mid-sentence and his whole body went tense.

It took her a minute or two to figure out that Eye Patch was responsible for this; he'd pulled Connor's pajamas and boxers down and was mouthing his cock. _That_ was a good way to shut him up.

"He's not conked out anymore," he gasped.

Eye Patch pulled off with a wet slurp and sat back. "You work too much," he said. "Let it rest for the night, yeah?"

"…okay," he agreed in a small voice.

While the Connors were picking up and putting papers in order, Abby took a phone call out in the hall. When she came back in, her mouth was a taut line and her fists were clenched. She slammed her phone down on the nightstand and sat on the bed with her face in her hands.

"Hey," Eye Patch came up behind her and stroked her hair. "What's wrong? Something happen?"

"My mum wants to know when I turned into a whore."

The room went icy and silent.

"Abby…" Connor whispered, sitting down next to her and cautiously put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into both of them and sighed heavily.

"God-fucking-dammit, my brother is such a prick!" She cried.

"He told everyone, then, didn't he?" Eye Patch asked, voice practically dripping icicles. "My offer still stands, you know."

Abby's younger brother Jack had turned up a few weeks ago, looking for a place to stay and playing on the 'we're family!' angle to try and get Abby to let him stay. She'd said he could have the loft, provided he didn't mind sharing a sleeping-space with the dog. But the boy had swiftly gone off the idea once he learned that his sister was living—and _sleeping—_with two men. He'd been disgusted and called her all manner of vile names, which Abby took with uncharacteristic meekness but neither Connor would stand for. Connor threatened to beat the crap out of him; Eye Patch just made a show of cleaning his gun a lot and privately offered to kill Jack and put different pieces through different anomalies.

Within a week, Jack Maitland was gone but apparently he'd gotten in touch with everyone he knew and told them that his sister was a slut and had two boyfriends.

"You gonna be okay?" Connor asked.

She nodded. "It's not like I really care too much what my mum or anyone in my family thinks. Well, we don't like each other and no one pretends we do. But why does she have to break up three years worth of _not_ talking to me just to call and tell me I'm a whore?"

Behind her, Eye Patch took her around the waist and pulled her to lie next to him on the bed; Connor followed, gently stroking down her side and over her hip.

"Don't worry about it, or them," he murmured into her hair.

"I know," she sighed. "It's just… tough."

"We know," Eye Patch said. "But try and remember—_they're_ not living with you. _We_ are. And we both love you."

She turned pink.

"You shameless schmaltz-merchant, you," Connor teased.

He just grinned soppily and leaned over her to kiss him softly on the lips, then bent to kiss Abby.

"It's kind of pathetic how easy I get over something like this just because you're being all cute and sappy," she said in mock-frustration. She pulled them both up close. "Love you," she whispered. "Both of you."

They pulled the blankets up and sorted out the pillows and settled in to sleep. The next few days were set to be hectic—they had Helen to sort out and that clone army she had, as well as that coded diary of hers, and Christine Johnson was going to have to be dealt with. Both Connors were quietly coming up with plans to have Jack humiliated or arrested—preferably both.

But for the time being it was just the three of them, curled up and happily content with their mad, mad, mad, mad world.


End file.
